16 October 2006
Dreamy day with a dreamy date
Although it didn't go as I had fore-planned in my mind, it was outstanding, nonetheless. The plan - awake at 545, make food preparations, pack the car, shower, dress and hit the road, be hiking by noon at the latest. Reality... missed the alarm altogether; showered, threw some food together, forgot the water in the freezer, drove to the office to reprint forgotten directions, left lying on the kitchen table, wait for printer to warm up, go back for coat, start down to Bloomington finally at 11 am. stop for coffee. stop for gas. Follow ridiculous directions taking twice as long to get there than needed. Stop for potty break. Creep thru Bloomington with the IU football traffic. Find Charles Deam Wilderness south of Bloomington. ahhhh, finally arrived. Eat quickly. Climb firetower. Now, lets set off for our hike.... should we bring food and water?? naaaaa. lets travel light. Quick swig o' water, three granola bars in Abram's back pocket, an apple in mine. 2:30 pm. The trail is easy at first, but pretty enough. Then 2.5 miles down a steep gully and up the other side. Abram reminisces about his horse riding days and educates me on how to make a good trail horse. 5.5 more miles to the lake. no mile markers, so altho we were close, we dont know it and I asked some hikers passing "much farther to the lake?" "nope, you're close." we were and we arrived at the lake around 5pm. One passer by said it was GORGEOUS, but perhaps he only goes to lakes in Indiana. It was pretty, but Abram and I were thankful we have experienced even better scenes! If you look closely, there is a dragonfly on the front of my shirt.
Well, of course, having taken two and a half hours to arrive there, and only one way back.... well we knew we were losing day light. Our legs were tired, Abram was parched, and we knew we had to turn right around and do what we had just got done doing. Abram ate two of his granola bars and we split the apple. We passed so many lucky persons with their tents set up, their fires burning and saw them sipping their hot coffee or whatnot. It was promised to be a "nice" day, but not trusting the weather men, we had brought a bunch of winter wear. We obviously didn't bundle up too much. You really couldn't have asked for better weather. The sky was blue and clear and the sun was shining strong. And at the rate we were hauling, we wouldn't have wanted to be heavy laden with winter accessories. When we finally saw a trail marker on the way back we pulled out our map and found out we are twice as far along as we thought we were. Nice feeling. Our legs were tired, as we knew it was a race against the fleeting sunlight, and we had no light of our own. we were deep in the woods and once we lost daylight there would be no seeing the trail. I had mental pictures of us huddling together thru the night to keep warm till we could find our way back in the morning. We kept each other entertained with stories of growing up - of course we had heard the stories from each other before, but it was fun, regardless. We knew we couldn't do the gully in the dark, the trail was hard enough to find in the daylight, so we cut down to what we thought would be a shortcut. We ended up on a gravel road for our last two miles. not easy on the feet, but at least with the swift approaching darkness we knew would be able to see the road. So, turns out, even on our tired old feet, we did 6 miles in 45 minutes, and thinking we were closer than we were, we dragged our last 2 miles, doing that in almost another 45 minutes. We were happy to see the firetower and our car. We guzzled some water, and I even talked Abram into climbing back up the tower to take a shot of the sun - tho already gone. Abram devoured his sandwich and we laughed as we drove out of the park. Our one hike we got in this year had to be a killer!!! We had a great time together and even tho I hiked most of the way with a pulled muscle in my right leg, we came out injury free. Our bed sure felt good that night!!
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6 comments:
great photos...that forest is wonderful, all these leafs on the ground,the branch of the trees over...incredible!!!A fantastic scene!!
bye
GEEZ! I am exhausted just READING this!!!! Good for you guys! Acutally it sounds like you guys had a lot of fun and "together" time!
Thanks, mdz - who exactly are you?
My Friend Sarah--I didn't know you had a blog!!
I LOVE the pic of Abram silhouetted against the sun. That turned out SO well!
:) :) :)
Great photo of Abram in front of the lake. Is photography just a hobby of yours or a profession?
Wow, I would NOT have made it on just a few granola bars and an apple! What a workout.
After seeing the west, Indiana must not seem too scenic, eh?
nope, not a pro - but Abram is!!!
He just rubs off on me! and he is perfectly gorgeous, so his pictures generally look good :)
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