HOT HOT HOT and a walk in the park

It has been a busy weekend. Social Security sent back the budget report I prepared and told me to do it again. I don't know why. I did my best. I never promised to be an accountant. It is a struggle for me to do anything at all with figures. However, I will take on the task again, and hope that this time they explain what I did wrong if they have gripes.
Yesterday I went to the Irvine Land Conservancy's writing workshop and hike in Irvine Park. I met the instructor in the shopping center across the street from Santiago Canyon Community College. She was not at all what I expected. Given that she had mentioned her grandchildren several times and the aches and pains she was experiencing, I expected a woman at least my age, probably older. But the woman who stood outside the $1.00 Bookstore was lean and blonde, looking no older than perhaps mid-forties, if that. Actually, it was difficult to tell her age at all. Her skin was virtually unlined, though some tell-tale puckers on the upper lip suggested middle-age. I knew who she was because she wore a khaki uniform bearing the insignia of the Irvine Land Conservancy.
Though there had been about 10 people at the first workshop, only five of us showed up this time, counting the instructor, and two of these (actually 3, if you count the woman from the Laguna Land Conservancy) were docents for the Land Conservancy.
We drove through Irvine Park, where families frolicked among the oaks and sycamores and passed through a gate to land where very few people are permitted to go, after a brief stop where we did a quick-write about our expectations for the hike. I said that I expected to see the bones of at least one animal, among other things. The workshop was pretty basic. The instructor went over the basics of diction and gave us a handout of quotations culled from the Internet. I was not sure what to say in answer to her questions. I didn't want to say nothing, given the small number of people there, but I could obviously not pretend that this was new to me.
The hike was more successful. We walked over an ancient creekbed that crackled under our feet. A golden eagle circled above, its cry echoing in the hot dry air. Then, after walking for maybe half an hour, we settled down to write again in a field of grass. I had brought a towel to sit on. Though I was obviously the least equipped to deal with the outdoors as far as experience and hardiness go, I held my own, except for the damp riverbed where bees sipped mud. That was my limit.
We'll see how it goes next week.