The View From The Top

If I tell you all I'm not a great hiker would you be surprised?

I thought not.

I'm a walker and a dancer and a weight lifter and a gardener, I am a great reader, but a hiker? No.

So you can imagine the tremor of fear in my chest when I heard part of our weekend in C-Ville was to be spent in the Shenandoah Mountains, walking along the Appalachian Trail for God's sake.  I quaked in my flipflops.

Various routes were discussed, mountains named, miles, as in 5, mentioned.  My eyes got bigger.  My still occasionally achy ankle ached.

I suggested we cater to the lowest common denominator, me, and find a trail that would be challenging but not one I would have to be airlifted off of.  With a freshly sprained ankle and a bruised ego.

It was done, Turk Mountain was our destination..  And with a brace on my ankle and backpacks full of water and chocolate,cheese,bread and cherries we hiked. And scrambled over rocks and hiked some more and sweated and swore and eventually some 2000 odd feet later we made it to the top.

I should be clear here, my three companions ran up the trail as lightly as a pack of mountain goats, I was the one, covered in sweat , ripe with expletives, who was looking for a private spot to curl up and cry.

But even I reached the peak and after clambering over some ginormous rocks sat and gazed outward and upward.

And the view was as promised. GG, as you can see, was totally in her element, I was totally out of my comfort zone. 

  But that's not such a bad thing. I often think if we listened only to the voices in our heads we'd never get out of bed in the morning.

So sometimes I listen to GG instead.

And dare to do things differently.

And my world gets bigger.