You never can tell how a day is going to turn out.

MrGrumpy spent all morning sat on the sofa listening to Pandora, it was lunch time before he finally got off hit but and went to get the car washed (for $6 it is not worth doing it himself).

While getting the car washed (which did not take long), he was chatting to MrV8Challenger, who said there was a car show on today over at El Camino Real / Scott. When the car was cleaned MrGrumpy paid MrCarWash the 6$ and gave them a $3 tip. He tapped in the intersection into MrSatNav and headed over to see if he could find the car show. At the intersection there was no sign of any cars, not knowing which way to try, he pulled over to the side of the road and consulted MrGoogle, but could not find anything.

He carried on driving and as he was heading towards the east bay hill, why not find a park and go for a walk, he had only done about 300 steps today and that was 9700 short of his target. It was not long before he found a sign and followed it to the "Ed Levin county park", it cost him $6 to park, so he had to make the most of it.

He parked by the lake and intended to walk around the lake until he got his required number of steps, little did he know what he was just about to let himself in for. He walked across the end of the lake and there was a route leading up a little way, he followed it as he could get better photos of the lake from up there. Anyway to cut a very long and exhausting hiking story short, he followed the trail to the top on Monument Peak, about 5.8 miles and 2000+ foot elevation change. He was close to giving up at times, it was a good job he had a bottle of water and snack bars with him, otherwise he would not have made it. The full sun did not help, there is little shade and it was pretty warm.

He found later this hike described as "this trail is not for beginners or casual 'neighbourhood' walkers. It is somewhat steep and continually demanding." He really should do some research before taking on these challenges, but if he had then he would not have attempted this. The views and sense of achievement really made it worth wild. Even the walk back to the car was tricky at times, it was so steep he was surprised that he did not slip and slide down a several hundred feet on his butt.

Legs aching and pretty tired he headed home for a relaxing evening. On the way home he went to the local store to buy some essentials, oh how his shopping basket has changed...


After a disappointing weigh-in this morning he tried again, after all that hiking had he lost any weight, well yes, over 3.4lbs in 12 hours, a bonus for the effort he put into the hike.