More Hiking

I'm feeling a sort of pattern emerging in my blogs...fountains for several months, then lakes, now hikes. Does it feel somewhat deja vu to read my blog? Yes? Well, too bad. The beauty of having a blog is that it's yours which means you can write whatever you want... no matter how boring it might be for others. So... back to my beautiful pattern of hikes...for posterity's sake :) Brian and I went on another hike (let's get real, this was several weeks ago, but what with all 3 of my classes turning in papers at the same time and me trying to spend every waking moment with my man....) but I digress... right, back to the pattern. We went to a new location up by Mayberry park and I gotta say, this is the ticket! It was a beautiful hike, but what's more, there were a lot of options. You could choose an easy hike, advanced, one that took you around the ridge, one that snaked the river, one that bordered the mountain, one that bordered the canal, one that went straight up, one the plateaued and then maintained a flat walk. So, unbeknownst to ourselves, we chose all of the above. I say unbeknownst because it was really quite accidental.
Here's Brian at the very start of our hike. It is still light out and the car is directly behind us.
It was a little late when we got started and Xiana was getting over the stomach flu so we planned on walking for about 1.5 miles and then turning around and heading home for dinner. All was going according to plan, but then we decided to go just a little farther. We passed several people who politely, even cheerfully said hello as they passed us. One such person was a nice woman on a bike with two dogs. Remember her because I will get back to her later in this story. We continued for about a half a mile and then turned around. Still, we are complying with our own parameters of this adventure.
As we walk back we look around our beautiful surroundings. Xiana is cheerful and being VERY good. We start discussing the finer things in life, share stories and secrets, fears and hopes, disillusionments and surprises. Essentially, we are having a real heart to heart. At one point in this walk Brian casually asks if that's our turn. "No," I quickly reply, "it was farther down than that!" So we keep walking, and we keep talking, and we are so thoroughly enjoying ourselves that we don't give our location a second thought for quite some time. Then Brian says, "ummm, I think we missed our turn. I'm pretty sure that our trail is way over there." As in, way across the canyon while we looking down from the top of the ridge. Never fear though, despite the fact that we have gone a little out of our way, Brian knows the way back to the car. We will just keep walking around the ridge until we get to a point that we can cut back down the canyon. And really, isn't it beautiful?!

So we continue talking and enjoying this hike. We still aren't entirely sure where we are, but are convinced that we have, indeed missed our turn, and that we will be able to find our way back. Right about the time we hit 5 miles, we pass the aforementioned women with the dogs and the bike and she exclaims, "Wow, you guys are walking the long trail tonight." We chuckle as we explain that we didn't really mean to do that, but that yes, we are indeed taking the long trail tonight. We walk around another ridge losing sight of the river all together, and come around another bend just as it starts to get dusk. I take a picture of all the birds in the trees and Xiana starts to get a little, shall I say, nervous?
It's past 7 and way past dinner, but because she has the stomach flu, she is not complaining about that. She is, however, requesting "mommy car" so Brian spots the place that we need to get to in order to make it back to our trail and we book it off the mountain the remaining mile in like 5.2 minutes...seriously... okay somewhat of an exaggeration, but we really did make it fast. Thank goodness that Brian is so good with directions because I might still be wandering around the ridge of that mountain talking about the finer things in life, eating cheese crackers and drinking water from his camel pack (that apparently is not called a camel pack, but that's a whole other story). Alas, as we careened around the last little curve, there it was... mommy's car. Which is exactly what Xiana was screaming, "there it is... mommy's car" with delight and relief. We hopped in, sped home, cooked and ate dinner, and called it a beautiful, successful hike; one which I will cherish as one of the best wrong turns I've ever made.