This day - allegedly the most "strenuous" of the entire Cleveland Way - turned out to be my absolute favorite. Everything came together, and we were in fine form.
We picked up the trail at the edge of town (Sarah and I had discovered the trail marker when we were roaming about trying to find the place she'd visited before) and set off under cloudy skies.
Early on, the fog or mist trapped along the hills reminded me of a volcano. I took about 10 pictures of it trying to capture the sense of things; I think this was the most successful one:
The silky skies gave a dark glow to the landscape:
It began to lighten, but the lushness remained:
I loved the downhills on this day - like the green stairs here:
My friends found the uphills easier, and didn't really enjoy the downhills. But my motto was: "No more up! DOWN WITH UP!"An initial resting place for our "elevenses". I think this was a Mars Bar Day.
Over the course of the day, the sun came out, but the clouds remained, large and sculptural:
At the top of one of many hills:
This has some of the feeling of the Yellow Brick Road:
Shadow of cloud on the farmland below:
Heather:
More views from the ridge:
Around this time, Bill began to ask me if I knew the writer "Maupassant" from San Francisco - he couldn't think of the name. I suggested maybe it was "Guy de Maupassant", although I'm not familiar with his work. Bill was sure this wasn't right. So Sarah and I began to see if we could help Bill remember Maupassant's name. We were very methodical about it, starting with men's names that begin with "A". I would shout out (for instance), "Aaron!" And Bill would shout back (perhaps) "Aaron Eckhart! American actor, played Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight. That's not it!" So we kept calling out A names, and he kept identifying them and shooting them down. Then we moved on to B names, then C names...
Our first glimpse of the Wainstones:
As we continued the ascent, we got up to the "E" names... then I think it got a bit too steep for the game.
The Wainstones were very cool, and we got to scramble over them as part of the official trail:
There was a group of 12 or 15 small schoolchildren running and playing around the Stones. Most of them were wearing identical green helmets. They were absolutely adorable!! 
Sun and shadow:
Phew! We made it!! We just felt really, really good at the end of the day.
We stayed at the Wainstones Hotel in Great Broughton, which is not on the Way; the hotel was kind enough to pick us up from a local car park. Bill asked the guy at the front desk to look up Maupassant's first name on the internet, and the guy came back with GUY de MAUPASSANT! Woot!
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