A nice day for a hike

We have daffodils even growing in our flower beds around the house.

The weekend was really nice! Gave us a sense that spring is finally here. Now having said that I am skeptical that I have just jinxed it by saying so!

Both Saturday and Sunday the temperatures got up to the upper 50's, the sun was shining and it couldn't have felt better to be outside after a long, cold winter! Saturday we brought the smoker out and cooked burgers for lunch and ribs for dinner. We sat outside and soaked up some rays and had a few beers. I felt like for a second I was back home, but not so hot! You can tell though that we are getting acclimated to the weather. Jeff was braver than I and actually wore shorts for a few hours on Saturday. Even the neighbor commented on his bravery of wearing shorts. I rolled up my sweats and wore a short sleeve, but shorts are not in my forecast, at least not yet.

Sunday we decided to take a hike down to the shore and walk along it for a couple of miles to the little village right down the way from us. It's called Johnshaven and it's a little harbor town. So we hiked about a mile from our house down to the shore and then walked along the shore till we got to Johnshaven. We played along the shore line for a bit and then hiked back. It got warm enough on our hike to shed our jackets. We'd never done the hike toward Johnshaven so it was nice to enjoy the scenery from the shore line. We passed the little creek that runs by our house and where it eventually empties out into the North Sea. We passed by the really neat school in Johnshaven that you normally can't see from the roadway. And we took in a few patches of daffodils that have finally bloomed. All in all I think we hiked about 5 miles (my best guess). Might have been more, might have been a little less but I think it was pretty close to 5 miles. What a great way to spend a Sunday! We decided that we need to do more hiking this spring and summer.

This is at the Benholm Mill, in their parking lot. Lots of daffodils

We passed the Mill on our way to the shore

I hear everyone say that when the daffodils bloom, spring is here. I hope they are right!

Once we got down to the shoreline I turned around and took a picture of the hill behind us. We live just on the other side of those trees, up the hill......about a half mile past the trees.
This very same creek runs by our house, but this is right before it lets out into the North Sea. It's much prettier here, I think.

This is the shoreline with its low tide. Lots of rocks. One day I'll have to get down there when its high tide so you see more of the Sea and less of the rocks. Of course after living here for nearly a year, I am still not sure when high tide is.

This is the really beautiful school from a distance. You can see the top of it through the trees from here but from the road it is completely hidden.

As we got closer, this was the best picture I could get. This was with my zoom, we were still quite a ways away.

I love this little old overgrown bridge. I didn't seen see it at first, Jeff is the one that pointed it out.

This wall stretched almost the whole way from where we got in the shoreline at to Johnshaven. No telling how old it is but it was 4 to 5 foot tall (varying in places). Though it was broken down in a few places it is still standing in most places.

I've heard Aberdeen called the granite capital of the world because there is so much granite here. You walk down the beach and there are just chunks of granite laying there. I found this worn smooth piece of granite (on the left). It sparkles with sparkly bits in it. And then I found this piece of turquoise (on the right) while walking along the rocky beach as well. This picture doesn't do either justice.