Hiking in Celebration of July 4th!

Brandon had duty on July 4th, so Heather went to the ship and we sat on the Bridge and were able to get a pretty great view of the fireworks over the Bay... actually, about 3 or 4 shows were viewable from our position!

The next day we packed up some stuff, including Tazzy and went for a hike up San Diego's tallest point, Cowles Mountain. It took us about 1-1/2 hours up to the peak and we sat and had a little lunch and then hiked back down... it wasn't at all like the hiking we are used to in Northern Utah... this hike had ZERO trees and ZERO rivers... just a lot of small brush, and it was VERY HOT! Poor Tazzy was pretty much done in by the time we decided to head back down and we had to carry her down about half the time! :)

Heather & Tazzy at Cowles Mountain. The lake in the background is Lake Murray... our home is on the far side of it... though you can't really see it from this far away... :)




Brandon & Tazzy at the base of Cowles Mountain... though an arduous hike, Brandon argues that this is no *REAL* mountain! It's only 1,591 feet... that's NOTHING compared to the almost 10,000 feet elevation of Ben Lomond's Peak back home in the Great Rockies... now THOSE ARE MOUNTAINS!!! This thing should be more appropriately named "Cowles Hill" or something... ;)