that’s how the week is progressing thus far. mollie and i just got back from a 45 minute walk through my new neighborhood; we hadn’t planned on walking that long, but we got lost. but luckily we made it home safely.
i’m getting tired of people asking how the wedding plans are going. THEY’RE NOT GOING ANY MORE THAN THEY WERE BEFORE. right now i’m just trying to figure out how to fit my clothes in the amount of alloted drawer space i have. perhaps we’ll need to buy yet another dresser.
so, camping last week – was it just last week that we marched and marched and marched through giant city state park? yep, last wednesday, how time flies.
on tuesday we went on some short hikes. at the beginning of each trail there was a huge sign stating how long the trail was and the estimated completion time. they were all from 1/2 to 2 miles long, and the times we anywhere from an hour to two hours, which was ridiculous, and we always finished way quicker than the estimated time posted. it’s not like we were hiking fast or anything.
that was hiking on tuesday. on wednesday morning we decided to hike the trail that led to the remote campsite. it said it was six miles to the site, a big loop that would make it a 12-mile hike. the giant posted sign said it would take four hours. we figured we could make it in three, and we headed out with three water bottles of water and a few random snacks.
i was fully of energy, bounding along, MFH and Mollie were also making good time, even though we didn’t start till 11 a.m. and it was suposed to be hot, it was very cool in the woods.
and then there were ticks. we kept stopping and checking our legs and killing the ticks that were crawling up us.
and then we kept hiking and kept hiking and there were little diamond-shaped signs marking the path but no mile markers or anything to see how far we’d gone. and we drank some water and of course had to give mollie lots of drinks because she was covering twice as much ground as us because she’d run up ahead and run back to us.
and we walked and walked and walked, up hill and down, over rocks, across little creeks that mollie splashed in. more walking, more ticks, more walking, more ticks.
after about an hour and a half we started wondering about the alleged remote camp site. we didn’t see it. and onward we marched.
after two hours i started attempting some math which is always a stretch for me even when not hiking. i calculate how many MPH we were going on the short hikes, and realized that doing 12 miles would take us about…five hours. FIVE HOURS! bad news indeed.
we thought maybe this was wrong. we started wondering if somehow we’d missed the primitive campsite. how primitive could it be, to completely miss it? we hoped we’d missed it and were now on our way back.
we didn’t have a map, of course; we did have one in our posession, but it was safely back at the tent.
finally, with most of our water gone, we reached the primitive campsite. two hours and forty minutes we’d been trudging. it was a pretty site, although i have to confess i didn’t even bother to walk around and look closely because i was too tired. we ate our snacks and that was the end of the food and there was very little water left and mollie kept panting a lot and i felt very bad for her but also very sad at the thought of walking two hours and forty minutes MORE.
but what choice did we have? none.
so, trudging some more, more ticks, more walking, and eventuallly i encouraged kevin to go on without me, to leave me there on the trail, that i couldn’t go any farther. we’d been chatting a lot on the first part of the hike, but i didn’t want to talk anymore because my throat was so parched.
more hiking, more hiking, it was hot, no water, i was hungry, no food…
he finally started pushing me up the hills, which was very nice of him, and he also never abandoned me to the wild animals lurking in the undergrowth. actually, the only animal we saw was one turtle way back a million years ago at the beginning of the hike.
luckily we did come across some random creeks with water in them so mollie could have a drink and splash around. and even though she, too, was very very tired and hungry and hot and thirsty, she still kept chasing things she thought she saw in the woods. the dog is intrepid and would definitely do very very well on one of those survivor shows.
finally, FINALLY, we made it back to our campsite. the whole thing took exactly five hours. i’ve never hiked for five hours in a row before. i almost wept with joy at the sight of that stupid sign that claimed the hike would take four hours. we all drank lots and lots and lots of water, but we weren’t so hungry after all and we did a more thorough tick check, and they’d climbed high up onto our legs and there were quite a few of them.
we then had to pack up our tent and our huge quantities of stuff, and we got in the car and drove three hours back to spfld. whew, air conditioning never felt so good.
when we stopped to fill up with gas, i read the trail map. we had crossed some roads, and could have cut back to the camp at several different places if we’d had the map. also, the map stated that if you hiked fast, you could make it in FIVE HOURS.
whew. i didn’t feel like a speedy hiker.
we got home and stopped by amy and jim’s and amy found two ticks in my hair and that was really gross and i asked jim all about getting lyme disease from the tick bites because a few of them had burrowed into our skin a bit and he rattled off lots of info. about ticks which i figured he’d have since he used to camp a lot and he’s a very outdoorsy kind of fellow. but then he said we should look them up online because all this information was from a book report he did in high school! the man has an excellent memory.
so we didn’t get lyme disease, but all my bites were itching like crazy and got very red and horrible looking but they’re healing now and i probably won’t be scarred for life.
funny, that then today i took another longer-than-planned-for walk. maybe this will be an every wednesday occurrence.
but hopefully not.
damn, i was going to be in bed before 11:30 tonight. there are still so many things i want to accomplish before i go to sleep…
we’re having a garage sale next saturday. i feel that this is too soon, but i’m outvoted, so we’re having it. i’m not going to get out of bed at five in the morning because a bunch of people show up on the lawn, that’s all i have to say.
for now, anyway.
ok ok ok,
june grace.