Holmes Run, Alexandria

On Saturday 22nd, I was awoken by a winter wind whistling around the building. All I wanted to do was snuggle further down under my warm comforter, but I had made plans to go on an eight mile hike, so I slowly slid from the bed and dressed warmly for the outdoors. Out of 32 that had signed up for the hike, only 5 of us turned up and not wanting to stand still in a freezing cold parking lot, we only waited 10 minutes for late arrivals before we set off.

Setting of at a brisk pace, it didn't take long before we warmed up but it was still too cold and windy to remove gloves and scarves. We passed a swamp area where the ice had started accumulating on the still water.

It was nice to walk through this tunnel and get a break from the wind. Holmes run is a beautiful walk where the trails are nearly always alongside waterways. Some of the trail passes briefly through residential areas but it is mostly rural, a gem in busy Alexandria.

In the Spring, the water levels are higher, covering the sandbars and the bottom of the bridge above and the rocks in the photo below.

We finished the hike without the sun warming up the day and without the wind dropping, but with a great feeling that we'd had a successful morning's workout. Time to go home and cook up a potful of soup with sausage and vegetables.
I've been experimenting with HDR recently and the bottom image shows the HDR result of the one above it. Doubleclick on the image to see the result more clearly. There's software available for HDR imagery but this one was done in Photoshop. And once again, I'd left my memory card in my laptop so these photos were taken on my iPhone.