Yesterday, Robert and I did our first hike of the season.  We went up to Lake Serene at the base of Mt. Index.  It was a great hike, although the set of 25 (yes, I counted) steep switchbacks has left my muscles a bit sore today.  The lake was beautiful and we had a nice lunchtime spot to ourselves for about 15 minutes until other groups slowly began to trickle in.

For lunch, I made sandwiches - avocado, sprouts and a simple salmon salad of celery, onion, salmon, parsley and mayo all on nutty, whole wheat bread.  I used canned salmon and it kind of freaked me out because the salmon still had skin and bones in it.  I was able to remove some of the bones, especially the vertebrae, but most of the smaller ones just disintegrated when I touched them.  That’s fine, I can probably use the extra calcium.  I actually read online later that 95% of canned salmon has bones and that they are perfectly edible.  Interesting.  We also had goldfish crackers and apples.  I can’t remember the variety of apple that I bought but I think it was similar to Pink Lady/Cripp’s Pink.  They were very good - sweet and sour and crisp all at once. A little chipmunk came by and rummaged through our bag of food but, when I tried to pass a cracker it’s direction, it ran away.  That was the only wildlife we saw on this trip with the exception of a couple of trout that some campers had caught and were about to cook.  Mmmm…fresh trout.  That kind of puts my canned salmon lunch to shame.  On the way home, we stopped off at a little stand on the side of the road and bought some cherries.  Summer has arrived!