I won’t bore you with a post about the joy of leaving 2020 in the dust, though joy there is. I prefer to spend the holiday looking forward.

Dan and I enjoyed two fun hikes in two days. On New Year’s Eve we headed to our nearby Lory State Park — we hadn’t been there for ages, and for a while it was even closed due to the proximity of the summer/fall wildfires.

On New Year’s Day, we have a bit of a tradition: First Day Hikes at the state parks. Normally the parks organize a guided hike of some sort, but that didn’t seem to be happening this year. No matter! We know how to follow a path.

This year we drove an hour to Barr Lake State Park. I’d been there once before for archery, but I’d never actually seen the lake.

We got a chilly, overcast day but were not deterred. Barr Lake is home to gorgeous raptors I never see in Fort Collins, such as the Northern Harrier!

I think Dan and I began 2021 on the right foot.

P.S. Why Barr Lake? A fellow student in my MFA program, Hanna, was visiting her family in the area over the holidays. I’ve never met anyone from my poetry cohort before — we were supposed to all meet over the summer but our residency ended up going virtual instead. It was so lovely to have lunch on a brewery patio with Hanna — the sun even peeked out!