Distance Hiking?

I know there is a huge issue with public lands, state parks, and social distancing. We happen to live in an area where crowding is not an issue, especially during the weekdays.
Going hiking together with friends can present with problems...

However my good friend from CrossFit [and a neighbor who lives about a mile away], and I have figured out something that has given us both as very active 60+ people ... how to hike together and apart!

We have set up a goal to hike together/apart once a week. Four weeks ago Bill was feeling rather down and out. We discussed this on the first 'hike' we did with Charlie and decided that we were both having a hard time dealing with Social Isolation and the huge disruption in our daily routines of being able to work out and hang out at the gym.

Bill and I have decided to limit our exposures [hiking] to our two households. Our county is starting to show up with some serious cases so we are practicing mental and physical support for each other.
We've found that this once a week event help us deal with everything else in our lives.
Interestingly enough, while hiking with Bill, I don't feel compelled to complain or even gossip!
Bill is recently retired and is all about exploring this new natural world that he lives in.

Our hikes our with Charlie and for the sole purpose of discovering plants, new trails, ... and easy trails that he can find to take his wife on.

Getting partially lost on new trails seems to be a thing we do.

Here is Charlie tied to a tree while I climbed out on an out cropping of rocks.

It looks more dangerous than it was.

Having another person along is so much safer. Rich doesn't mind as I normally come back with such a calm laid back attitude that it makes our life in Isolation much nicer.

Our focus is Charlie. The little tiny dog with 3 inch front legs who trots along the trail and leads the way.

Well, not entirely. Exploring the spring flowers was something that stopped us both in our tracks.

Bill said it best. He stood amazed and said, "I don't think I've ever in my life seen as many Trillium as I see in this spot. In fact I think this is more Trillium than I've ever seen in my entire life!"

We both just stood there admiring the forest of thousands of trillium interspersed with Spring Beauties and Bellwort.

I mean we literally just stood and took it all in!

I found some of the old horse/mule trails to get on top of the rocks. At one time we used to actually ride to the top of these places.

I got Bill to ham it up for me.

He is not at the very edge. I just angled it so it appears that way.

When we reached the 'Loop Lookout' Trail we realized that we didn't have enough time to actually hike the loop and get back home before our spouses would wonder if we fell off the earth.

I sat on the trail and pulled out the map. I noted that the trail we had been following skirted a ridge and a crop field. I showed Bill that if we simply crossed the field we'd cut shorten our time hiking back.

Let me say that I am so grateful for all of the time I've spent learning about maps and the way this land is formed.
We walked around the field and were only 15 minutes from where we had parked.

Next trip out, we'll take the short cut and proceed to the loop we intended to do in the first place.
Now that we know about the short cut, we can explore more rock out crops.

Here we are failing at keeping 6 feet apart.

I set up my little red camera on the log as we stopped to have an apple and share some bits with our Trail Boss, Charlie.

Our Distance Hiking/Safe Socializing is working pretty well for us.

I showed Rich the photos and he quipped, "Finally! You have found someone your own age to play with!"

I am grateful to have a friend like this who is genuine and who likes hiking and exploring as well as I do.

And...
now
we wait to see what next week brings.

"I want to be improbable
beautiful and afraid
of nothing,
as though I had wings"
~~ Mary Oliver