Table Rock

Nate and I went camping with his Cousins this weekend.

They have nine kids in their family and cooked the best

camping food that I've ever had.

A group of them were going to hike table rock in the morning

and I was invited to come. I hesitated because I'm not exactly

in my most athletic stage of life, but after they promised not

to get upset if I was slow I decided I would go to.

After all, it's only a 3 mile hike up the mountain, and

I've been wanting to do some landscape work.

We started off at 9:30am ish and it was incredibly steep, but I was

assured that it would get easier as we went on.

Within the first mile I already had a big blister on

my left heel, but I still pressed on.

Soon we got to where we could see our destination,

it didn't look so far off and so we found new

motivation. This was our view...

But about right here is where my hip joints decided to

stop working. They literally froze up and tried their

hardest to stop me from pushing them any further.

I was so close! I had to keep going! I could SEE where I needed

to be and knew that even if I went slow, I'd eventually get there.

So I put one foot in front of the other, step by step.

It was really pathetic. Like really.

I looked like I was crippled or learning how to walk.

I clenched my firsts and swung my legs forward one at a time.

It took a few seconds between each step so my pace was

closer to a crawl. Nate's cousins were encouraging me and

Nate was right behind me the whole way, telling me I could do it.

Then at last...

I DID IT!!!!

And it was all worth it for THIS...

Click on it to see it larger (it's worth it) ;)

The hike down is another story on it's own. Let's

just say we took a different route and

almost didn't make it back before dark

The whole hike took 11 hours ...ouch

Let's just say I'll be using this 3 day weekend to recover.