Back from the Mountains!

Hi Friends,

Well it was a successful trip up to the mountains over the weekend and I came back feeling refreshed as I got lots of outside time and good exercise. Not to mention getting home by 7 on Monday so I could go to class with Debbie and Randi! (P.S. My arms are still hurting me this morning after our workout on Monday).

I will include all my pictures tonight when I get home. Sorry I forgot to include them now but I just wanted to write a short message to tell you all about my winter hike.

 In short, it was awesome! OK, well maybe not quite awesome as it was only 23 degrees out and absolutely freezing but we had a great time. We did a 5 mile hike and really enjoyed it the whole time. We bundled up in all our warmest gear and headed out at about 11:30 and finished in about 2 hours and 15 minutes. We would have finished earlier but one thing we were not expecting was the trail to be covered in ice. We also didn't realize it was covered in ice as there was snow on top of it too. All I have to say is snow covering ice is a BAD combination. We were slipping and sliding all over the place so we had to be quite deliberate in our steps and try not to slip.

Also after about an hour we both reached for our water blatters in our packs and found that they were....frozen solid. I will admit I was not anticipating that to happen. I mean it makes sense that it would freeze as it was 23 degrees out but the mouth pieces that you suck on to get the water to come out were little blocks of ice so we had to suck on them for a few minutes until they warmed up enough to get the water moving. After that we decided to tuck the mouth pieces into our coats so we could keep them closer to our bodies, which were much warmer than the air, and would keep the ice from forming.

As we finished we dealt with the worst of the cold, as we had started out on the lake and beach side, when we cut back around to the beginning of the trail the wind just cut right through you at the end but once we made it back to the car we warmed up and then headed into town for a nice well deserved hot meal. It was glorious. After a while we both decided we were nuts for hiking in the cold as the wind chill had it so it felt like it was 10 degrees. Although that being said we were glad we went on Saturday and not Sunday as Sunday it was actually 10 degrees without the wind chill. Bottom line was it was cold. Really cold. It was also hard to layer appropriately because you wanted to be warm but when you were warm you sweat and once you got a little wet with sweat then you were cold. It was a vicious cycle but we had a great time.

Once we got home we got cleaned up and were going to head into town to do some grocery shopping but a huge snow storm came blowing in and after driving for a few minutes we decided it just wasn't worth it so we went back home and watched The Worlds Strongest Man and built a fire.

Sunday we managed to get out and run all of the errands that we wanted to do in addition to just browsing in Michael's arts and crafts store (I couldn't help myself) and walking through Gander mountain to look for some heavier duty long-johns that I could use as a base layer when we do some more winter hiking.

Monday we stayed in and played Monopoly and played with Sarah before packing up and heading home. I wanted to make sure I was back for my class so we unloading everything and got everything settled and I had about an hour until class. So I watched a little TV and played with my rabbit, who I am trying to train to come when I call her....which is not as easy as it sounds folks.

Then it was class time and I was SUPER pumped up about it! I had a great class and I left feeling sore and like I had a great workout. Some of it was hard and I had to stop and take a break a couple times to catch my breath and then start again but I really felt like I had accomplished a lot when I left. I always love the way I feel after a workout.

OK, well I better run and get back to work but I will fill you all in on more details of my weekend and day tonight when I get home. Also I will have to remind you all about my Gocket which came in the mail last night!

Tonight it is a Hills run night.....wish me luck!