Monday, October 27, 2014

Break from Reality Anniversary - Day 8

Well, the lack of kitchen didn’t take long to develop.  I found out that all we had brought for breakfast was canned biscuits and eggs.  So, we had to improvise with what we had…which ended up being a delectable meal of almond butter sandwiches, beef jerky, and a chocolate/oat protein bar.  At least I’ll have plenty of energy for the hiking today.  On a positive note, we get to eat it outside on the porch swing.  The weather feels absolutely amazing today.

Later that day…

I have determined that the formula for trail difficulty computes to something roughly in the neighborhood of the following…where TD is Trail Difficulty, RT is Relative Tiredness, and FOOS is how Fat and Out Of Shape you are.

TD = 1/RT

RT = 1/FOOS

Therefore, TD = FOOS

Trail difficulty is inversely proportional to how relatively tired you are.  How relatively tired you are degrades as the day wears on, the rate of which is inversely proportional to how fat and out of shape you are.  Thus, we can conclude that trail difficulty is equal to how fat and out of shape you are, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the trail difficulty printed on the stupid brochure.

For instance, we took a “Strenuous” trail in the morning, descending 200 feet down into Cedar Creek Canyon and ending up at Cedar Creek Falls.  While exhausting, we completed it with relative ease.  Later in the day, we took an “Easy” trail to go see Bear Cave, which nearly killed us both.  As a matter of fact, my wife is still lying outside on the steps to the cabin moaning…I probably should go check on her, or at least ask her to keep it down.  The moaning is getting distracting.

Cedar Creek Falls were a bit disappointing this time, as the water coming over the edge was merely a trickle, compared to the deluge it was the last time.  I guess they haven’t had a lot of rain this year, which would also account for the lack of changing color in the leaves.  But sometimes it’s not about the destination, but the journey; and we enjoyed feeling the burn in our legs and the fresh air in our lungs.  To put it into my wife's own words as we descended back up the 200 feet to the trailhead, “Oh my god!  I can’t feel my legs anymore!  Whose stupid idea was this anyway?!  Oh that’s right…yours!  You better keep moving, because if I catch you, I’m going to use what little energy I have left to throttle you with my walking stick!”  I, on the other hand, was scampering up the trail, jumping from rock to rock, like a mountain goat…or a spry young man of…dare I say…34.  Having no issues at all, and never once bending over to wheeze like an asthmatic on a treadmill.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER:  All events described here are completely accurate and 100% honest.  They have not been changed or embellished in any way.  You should only believe what you read here and ignore any protest or dissenting opinion by my spousal unit.

After a short siesta at the cabin, we decided to try our luck with Bear Cave Trail.  The day had really warmed up, and it wasn’t as pleasant to be out on the trails.  I…I mean, some other guy that looks nothing like me at all…was sweating from places that he didn’t know he could sweat with moisture that he wasn’t aware he still had in his body.  This same guy’s…uh…this complete stranger that we met on the trail’s…joints were also popping more than a bowl of Rice Krispies.  Poor shmoe…if only he were more like me.  Instead of the invalid lying on a bed, writing in his blog, that I’m sure he is tonight.  Nope, nothing like me.

Bear Cave has the Eye of the Needle, a series of huge rocks with narrow crevices in between.  Standing in the majesty of these massive boulders dwarfed us and made us feel completely insignificant.  It’s always a wonder to see the things that God can make.

The rest of the hike would have been uneventful, except for a funny (at least to me) incident that my wife had with a swarm of determined mosquitoes.  Apparently, her sweat is like catnip (or maybe mosqnip?) to them.  No matter how hard she tried to kill them or swat them away, they would not be deterred.  In fact, the harder she tried, the more mosquitoes that showed up.  Pretty soon she had a halo of dancing mosquitoes rotating around her head.  She finally put her coat over her head, and they left her alone…only to come after me.  So, off to nurse the little red whelps starting to rise up all over my body.

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