Break

Last week I hatched a brilliant plan: hike 100 miles in 4 days, meet up with my dear friend Sho at her wonderful home in Blacksburg, pick up my sweetheart (if this is news to you, surprise!), take a couple days off, and then resume hiking sometime mid-week.  About 50 miles into this accelerated journey I came to a very significant conclusion: I wasn't having fun.  Instead of taking my time, strolling over some beautiful ridge lines and staying a historic shelters, communicating with the deer and singing with the hawks, moseying my way through Amish grocery stores and enjoying the ensuing extended lunches on overhanging rock ledges, I was hauling ass, and was missing all the good stuff.  Also, to say that my feet hurt would be a little bit of an understatement- while no (new) blisters were present, my feet ached with every step, and I was hiking well into the dark every night (with a dying headlamp, AGAIN).  In sort, as I alluded in my Twitter feed, my body asked me to be less of an asshole, and I decided to listen. 

Taking a couple of summer days off did me tremendous good- I read some excellent books, helped Sho and Joe and Chris plant part of their garden (Confidential to Ivy: HA!  You're not the only sister with a green thumb!) (Confidential to Sho and Joe and Chris: I really hope I didn't screw up your garden!), ate good food, played with a dog, chased some chickens around a yard, belly laughed on a regular basis, wore a red clown nose for a little bit, lounged, listened to wonderful music in a restaurant in the middle of nowhere, and visited both a cadaver lab at the local med school and the bio mechanics crash testing lab at the local university.  It was wonderful.

I've been thinking a lot about community and family, and the intersection between the two.  While I am always grateful for the family that I was born into, the people who have raised and loved and supported me since birth (even if some of them have voiced concerns that during this hike my legs will morph into David Ortiz's legs), I've been becoming more and more grateful through the years for my non-biological family.  I hope you know what I'm talking about: those friends with whom both years and distance and lack of contact don't seem to break the bonds of friendship and love.  Sho- I am so deeply thankful that you are a part of my life.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This is the first in a series of four photos.  By the last one I

was giggling like crazy and Sho was looking politely pained.