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.
