When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash...

A taste of what kind of entries you'll get when I return from my visit home:

The adventure continues...

When last I left you, Barrett and I had conquered Sharp Top and we're foolishly confident about our ascent of Flat Top.

We enjoyed the peaceful, flat leg between the two mountains, reflecting on how awesome we were and how unlikely our death was.

Doesn't this look peaceful? Honestly I think the lodge should look a lot classier, but the lake is very pretty.

The map and directions Barrett had brought with him did warn us that the first part of the trail up Flat Top would be very steep with very few switchbacks. But then, as I read it, we were supposed to hit a more gradual slope with beautiful flora and fauna and all that good stuff. (The "as I read it" section of that is an important point...I read it wrong.)

The directions were not lying about the steepness of the first section. As we dragged our nearly lifeless bodies up the sharply pitched gravel trail, I could barely admire the pretty trees and whatnot due to my deep conviction that at any moment I would simply need to give up.

When we hit a bend in the road, I convinced myself this was the more gradual section, and everything was now going to be fine. It was pretty, that is for sure.

See, pretty! And not too steep looking, right? Wrong.

Only later did I realize I'd been reading the sheet wrong, and what it actually was that the majority of the 1.8-mile climb was steep and direct with very few switchbacks. I have never threatened to punch a mountain in the face more than I did on that hike, and I frequently threaten to punch things in the face.

There were some butterflies along the way, which were nice. It took me a really long time to get a good photo of them (I am not good at cameras), but my attempts were a good excuse for a break, at the very least.

Not a great photo, though you can sort of see there are some butterflies. They're sneaky.

Better photo. Look, butterfly!

After a terrifying dog encounter (I'd rather not talk about it, mostly because it was really not terrifying and I just acted kind of bitchy because, well, tired) and more "false summits" than I'd care to recount, we finally reached the top! To celebrate, we sat on the rocks for a very long time, and then took some pictures. Wild and crazy, right?

Pretty sure these birds were disappointed we didn't drop dead for the devouring.

The view was pretty worth it, though, even with all the near death feelings.

And then we hiked back down. The end. 

EPIC HIKE!!!!!!!

I'm dispensing with my traditional blog title form, because I have, yet again, a real adventure to recount and it is worthy of special titling.

Sunday, Barrett and I decided to tackle what we titled "epic hike," both Sharp Top and Flat Top in one day. According to the website where we got this hike (http://www.hikingupward.com/jnf/peaksofotter/), our route would cover about 9.8 miles, many of them upward.

We've done both mountains before on their own, and they've both been difficult before, on their own. But, as I am a fool, I always manage to convince myself that I'm in better shape now and will not die before I reach the top of either mountain.

Again, I'm a fool.

We set out around 11:30 a.m. Sunday, starting alongside a dad and two very little children. Every time I see these tiny kids on the trail, I have two simultaneous thoughts. 1) If these kids can do it, of course I can, I'm a grown-ass woman. 2) What if I can't do it, though, and these kids can, and then I'm just going to be embarrassed and sad for the rest of my life?

Of course, we quickly passed the dad and the little kids, and I convinced myself there was no way that two-year-old little girl and her slightly older brother were going to make it, even though the little boy was wearing a pretty sweet climbing shirt.

The initial stretch of Sharp Top is always the worst, as it's pretty much just a straight incline for about a quarter of a mile. I convinced myself, though, that once I conquered that it would be easy going, and kept reminding myself that Flat Top, though long, is a fairly gradual hike. Keep in mind here that I am a fool.

Nothing of too much note happened along much of the Sharp Top trail, other than occasional feelings that I was likely to pass out and die alternating with feelings that I was totally going to make it and was super badass. Near the top of the trail, we came across a mom with two young children, a tiny bit older than the ones we'd passed earlier but still decidedly not old.

The little girl, who was at best three, was snacking on chips and blocking the trail from any passers by. I think her mom was worried that was annoying, but I definitely appreciated the break.

After we passed them and continued upward, I heard the mom trying to convince them to continue on by paraphrasing the great movie A League of Their Own. "If it wasn't hard," she told them, "everybody would do it and wouldn't be cool anymore!"

And let me tell you, it was pretty cool when we made it to the top. We were sort of between the morning and afternoon hikers - we'd passed lots of people on their way down as we were ascending, but we seemed to be ahead of the big crowds planning to spend the mid-afternoon hours tackling the mountains. So that meant when we first reached the very top and sat down to enjoy our picnic lunch, we were the only people at the very top, which was pretty sweet.

People did eventually join us, otherwise I'd be very impressed with my ability to use the timer on a camera and place it perfectly for a top of mountain photo.

After a few minutes, we were joined up top by an older couple we'd been leap frogging the whole way up, both of whom had kick-ass walking sticks. They talked to us for a bit, and mentioned that although they'd never done Flat Top and Sharp Top in the same day, they'd hiked over and around Flat Top before for about a 7-mile trek. It was only then that we learned that Flat Top, although gradual when approaching from the Blue Ridge Parkway entrance, is super steep when approaching from the Sharp Top side.

This was not great news. 

We also eventually were met by the mom and her two little kids. The little girl was nom'ing on an apple, which she apparently had demanded if she was to be expected to go the rest of the way up the mountain. Way to negotiate, little girl.

After a lengthy break, we headed back down - always better then heading up. Just a few feet below the top we saw our other little kid hiking companions, the dad and children we'd started the day with.

I told the kids I was impressed and that they were clearly awesome hikers, and the little boy said something along the lines of "Didn't you see my sweet climbing shirt?"

I'll finish up later today or tomorrow with our adventures on Flat Top (spoiler alert, it was super difficult and life force draining) and more photos. Stay tuned to see if we survive epic hike!

The biggest adventure of them all...

Here it is, loyal readers, the adventure to end all adventures. I've been trying to put off writing this one, as it's a bit on the embarrassing side, but it's also most likely to make me famous. And you know how I feel about this blog and gaining fame.

So here we go.

Saturday, Alicia, Katrina and I set off for a hike, something we have done in a few months. Last April, we'd attempted this hike on a section of the Appalachian Trail near us, only to discover that the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed near that section for basically all of the wintertime. Outraged, we found a different hike that we sort of invented, which involved fording a river. (We're the toughest! Totally could've made it on the Oregon Trail.)

This time, though, the Parkway was open and the hike seemed like clear sailing. We left one car at the end of a footbridge over the James River near US 501, and took car number two to Punch Bowl Mountain, mentioned in the description of our three-mile hike.

Off we went, expect two miles of gradual ascent, followed by one mile of steep descent, with gorgeous views of downtown Lynchburg along the way.

This is what our path looked like at the beginning. Pretty and nonthreatening, right? Wrong.

To prove that we're intense and were, in fact, on the AT.

We made our way down the trail, noticing some cool trees and feeling the grind of the allegedly "gradual" ascent. Our first hint that something might be wrong was the absence of any cool overlooks, but high on our own awesomeness, we pressed on, rationalizing that those overlooks might have been along the 10-mile route and not on the three.

This, although pretty, was not at all a scenic overlook. If I took the picture facing the other way, you'd note a formidable amount of mountain still ahead. WHY DID WE NOT SEE THE SIGNS??? Fools.

Without the satisfaction of the overlook, we began what could only be defined as an incredibly steep descent. It was pretty, there were woods and stuff, but it was super descent-y and fairly challenging.

Alicia dubbed this "nature's front door," one of the many lovely spots we encountered near the bottom of our descent. We had the gall, you see, to assume this was near the entrance to the trail back, if someone were to start at the footbridge. MISTAKE.

Just as we began to think we'd been descending for more than a mile, we glanced to our left and noticed two things: 1) A large body of water, theoretically the James and 2) A bridge! We were almost home! Or rather, almost to one of our two cars which was about 20 minutes from our second car and almost an hour from our actual homes. Still, progress.

Imagine our surprise, then, when we reached said bridge, and it was definitely not the lengthy, giant footbridge we'd been promised.

It was instead a monkey bridge-esque suspension bridge (I did not care for its bounciness) over a small creek. Foolishly, we convinced ourselves that this creek ran parallel and perhaps above the James, and we'd be headed down towards it any minute now.

Look upon my confidence, ye readers, and despair.

After crossing the far too bouncy but otherwise pretty bridge, we began to go up. That's right, dear readers, we were encountering a steep ascent, something we had not been told to expect.

"Maybe we have to go up in order to go down?" Katrina asked, describing poetically both the nature of life and of mountains.

Agreeing, we pressed on, though all of us were starting to feel a bit of uneasiness and trepidation. Just before hitting the bridge, we'd crossed a small road and AT markers which indicated we were walking North, the same way we'd driven from where we left Car A to where we left Car B.

As you may have guessed, we probably should have been walking South.

So after pushing on over the unexpected ascent, and hoping against hope that we'd spot the mighty James below us, we began to descend toward a body of water, but one that was decidedly not the James River.

At this point I decided it might be a good idea to consult Google Maps as to our position, and determined that we were near the Lynchburg Reservoir, much closer to US 60 than 501, and decidedly far from where Car B had been left.

And so we were left with four options:

A) Push on, hopefully until reaching 60, at which point hopefully some kind soul could return us to our cars. 60 looked reasonably close on the map, but there was really no way of knowing what the actual distance would be. 

B) Turn back and hike the return trek, which would likely take us right to sundown but get us back shortly before, but would also require hiking back up the steep descent that had made me nervous on the way down and doing so already worn out and stressed from our initial journey.

C) Attempt to make our way to the reservoir itself and alert the reservoir keeper, or whatever his title is, to our predicament, in which case he would kindly boat us to safety or a location from which we could be picked up.

D) Return to the access road near the bridge and get Barrett to come pick us up.

We tried to make Option C work initially, pushing on with the hope that the trail would curve down to the reservoir itself, but as that became increasingly unlikely decided B or D were mostly likely go lead to our safe return home.

(Program note: at this point we became a bit too stressed about not being lost forever to continue taking pictures. Hopefully you're riveted by the human drama taking place and will keep reading.)

As we started to head back, in case we need to pursue Option B, I got in touch with Barrett to get the wheels in motion on Option D. He agreed to head out to Reservoir Road and we decided to wait at the bridge; an option that, if he could make it out to us in an hour and a half or so, would've been fairly logical and not resulted in our untimely deaths from exhaustion or hypothermia.

Fast forward two hours later - still no Barrett. Turns out, the road we were on was super long and super off-roady, severely limiting his ability to reach us in a timely fashion. Meanwhile, my phone was dead and Alicia's near death, while Katrina struggled to find signal.

Around 7:45, we tried to explore our environs a bit more and set a target time of about 8:15 or 8:30 when would call the police.

And at that moment, two wonderful things took place. We managed to reach Barrett on the phone, who said he was still alive but low on gas and had only made it down about half the road. So we knew he wasn't dead.

AND, some bear hunters drove by.

Alicia, who does not have the natural fear of stranger stabbing that I do, flagged down these bear hunters and asked them if they could drive us to a gas station on a major road where we could wait to be picked up. They asked where we were parked, and then told us they'd be happy to drive us to the Parkway.

Never mind that they were apparently illegally bear hunting, enjoying beers while driving us through the mountains, or at one point offering to sell us to some buddies they ran into for $3,000, these men are the greatest living human beings alive.

That's pretty much the end, give or take some frantic phone calls from Barrett's mom and her decision to share our adventure with all the attendants of their church. We learned some important lessons, though, namely the importance of compasses and maps.

And never, ever hiking again. 

I have a real adventure...

To tell you all about, but it was vaguely traumatic and embarrassing so it may be a view days. But don't worry, it's coming soon.

And that's why you don't go out on work nights...

As I've alluded to in the past, Katrina, Alicia and I are currently in the midst of a strange and wonderful free ticket cycle to Lynchburg Hillcats baseball games. Here's how it's gone down:

July 10: Attend work night at the Hillcats game, having received the tickets for free. Deal with hours of rain delays and a pretty terrible baseball game, BUT, receive free tickets thanks to a deal sponsored by a local radio station where you get a free ticket if you buy a ticket to that game. Except you clearly don't need to have bought it, since they give it to you when you give the ticket taker your ticket, and he doesn't know where you got it.

July 24: Attend game for which we received free tickets. RECEIVE FREE TICKETS AGAIN, thanks to the same promotion.

Aug. 14: Attend third free game. RECEIVE FREE TICKETS A THIRD TIME! This is madness!

Aug. 28: Will attend fourth free game. Free tickets unexpected, but still, it's pretty terrific.

Anywho, the other thing we've determined from attending so many free Hillcats games is the magic of the refillable pitcher. Although minor league baseball games don't quite have the exorbitant food cost of major league ones, beer still ain't cheap.

BUT, if you purchase a pitcher, and an initial cost of approximately $17, I think, you can then bring it back to every game you attend and refill it for only $12! ($16 and $11 if you go with generic rather than craft beers.)

Glasses, on the other hand, will run you like 6 or 7 bucks. The solution, my friends, is clear.

Having attended many a game now, we of course have a pitcher (two, actually, Barrett and Alicia both own them), which allows for the cheaper consumption of the alcohol. And we have the system down...arrive, receive free ticket, acquire wristband, purchase beer.

It's the best.

Anywhoo, last night was like the loveliest weather in the world, so it was quite the grand old time at the ballpark.

Look at that happiness.

Also, while at this game, I finally conquered my fear of Southpaw, the murderous Hillcats mascot.

Friends! But look at those eyes; good thing I'm abiding by the advice to keep your friends close and enemies closer. 

Here is the problem, folks, with the free game cycle, the efficient beer purchasing and the lovely weather and quick-moving ballgame: quite suddenly, the game was over, we were too tipsy to drive AND still had a half pitcher of beer left.

The solution? Sit around the ballpark as long as we possibly could in an attempt to finish the beer. Failing that, walk out towards my car, attempting to finish as much as possible then go sit at Katrina's nearby apartment to sober up, failing that, throw the empty beers on my car (this was Alicia's plan, which seemed like a great idea at the time).

Do not worry, dear friends, we did stop drinking at that point, and the far-more sober Katrina drove us to her place where we hung out for about two hours and bitched about work. It was great.

Great, that is, until I had to wake up at 6:45 this morning and everything was the worst.

And that's why you don't go out on weeknights.

Everybody's working for the weekend...

Adventure recap from the full weekend, straight ahead! I've officially given up on fame from this blog, but at least it's a way to stay in touch with a few people (my two consistent readers and commenters) and to hopefully provide entertainment to people who currently live in the same city as I do but are occasionally bored at work.

So, Friday night, we'd discussed the possibility of attending a 90's themed dance party at this bar in downtown Lynchburg that is closing at the end of the month. Now, there is pretty much nothing in the world I would rather do than attend a 90's themed dance party.

This would actually not be the best song to dance to at said party. But it's so great, and we all need to listen to it more often.

Sadly, though, living in Lynchburg has somewhat hampered our enthusiasm (using the plural first person to refer to me and Katrina) for attending parties that do not START until "after 11 p.m." Who do they think we are, college students? Plus, work was just the worst on Friday...I had to deal with some difficult people and the stuff I got to write was not as cool as I wanted it to be, and all I wanted to do was sit on my couch, drink beer and eat Chinese food.

Luckily, I was not alone! (How would I be? Doesn't that sound like basically the best activity in the world?) Katrina, my roommate Kayla and our other friends (there are very few of them) agreed that was really the best choice for our Friday night. 

So we ordered Chinese food (though the new owners of our favorite place have jacked up the prices and made the food less good - heartbreaking), drank beer and watched Admission (not great) and Beauty and the Beast (so great!).

For a slice of my life, Barrett's take on Beauty and the Beast: "I don't like it because the wrong guy wins."

When the movie was over, though, he did acknowledge that Gaston is kind of a dick and maybe the Beast deserved to wind up with Belle.

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful...we went out Saturday night, though not with Barrett's high school friend as promised. Sunday's hike was cancelled for fear of rain, which kind of came, though not very intensely and might have been okay. Still, I didn't really want to be on a mountain during a thunderstorm (and I got to spend a lot of the day in bed - always good. Though I did work out for a bit.)

All in all, not the most adventurous of weekends, but I hope you loved the post thanks to the video supplements.

Over and out.

Two things on my mind right now...

"I am the one who knocks..." etc. and this.

Very different, but I hope the latter made your day. Stay tuned for weekend adventures come Monday!

We're walking, we're walking...

And so we come to the conclusion of a pretty terrific weekend, that has been replaced by an initially unpleasant and now just kind of "meh" work week. But, as the camel in that commercial knows, it's Wednesday, and that is just terrific.

So Sunday I started the day with my first visit to mass in several months. Back in January I resolved to go to church every week, which quickly become every other week, and then...

But I'm back on track now! I went to Barrett's church last week and Catholic church this one, and actually got something out of it both times. I'm going to make a slight effort to be more Jesus-y, and we'll see where that goes. Perhaps you'll get a quality entry on Eleanor's weird thoughts on religion one day, but I'll have to work hard to still make that hilarious.

Anywho, post-church, I would've been all about a nap, but alas, it was not to be. Due to my endless quest to be fit and healthy and fabulous looking (a quest at which I frequently fail - see: the apple pie I may or may not have purchased from Kroger at 10:30 last night) I wanted to get back on the horse of Sunday runs, preferably of at least the six mile variety.

So Barrett and I set out for the trail we usually run on, he with like 8,000 pounds of bricks in his backpack (it's a thing) and me feeling like I'd rather be asleep.

But lo and behold, about a mile and a half in, I was feeling pretty good. As I am slow, and running is hard, and I'm not 6'4", I generally fall behind on these runs. But here I was, still leading by a considerable margin, well past the halfway point of the initial stretch!

In fact, I could not even see Barrett. Although initially inclined to celebrate my awesomeness, I started to grow concerned he may have broken all his bones and was being eaten alive by squirrels, so at two miles - despite the fact that I was feeling like a world beater and reflecting on the beauty of nature while rocking out to the Decemberists, circa 2007 - I turned around and headed back, ready to intimidate my squirrels.

Turns out his brick-carrying backpack was just not the best, and did not hold up super great during the running. We decided our best course of action would be walking - an additional five miles.

That was a lot. If you add up my weekend, we've got two miles of running Saturday, followed by two miles of running Sunday, followed by five miles of walking Sunday. THAT'S NINE MILES - SO MANY MILES!

But I survived, and my legs only moderately felt like they were going to fall off. And then we watched Interview With the Vampire and I just don't really know how to feel about that movie.

The end. I wish I was more hilarious - maybe next time.

Splish splash...

I've spent most of the day actually doing work (or reading about how diamonds are totally worthless), so been unable to write part two of my recap of my idyllic weekend. But I reminded myself that I must, while the memories are still fresh in my head and I am not in the grumpiest mood ever.

And so, after a Friday night enjoying the great American pastime, we moved on to Saturday: race day!

Around 11:30 a.m. Friday, Barrett e-mailed me that I should register for this splash and dash running/tubing race he was covering Saturday, because he'd gotten permission to run it as well as cover it. My initial reaction was extreme laziness and reticence. Running is hard, and Saturdays are best spent laying around in bed.

BUT, the race did look fun, and after I successfully convinced Katrina to also join us (due to a suspicion I had that Barrett would not wait for me for the tubing section - later confirmed), we quickly registered as the minutes ticked down to the noon deadline.

So, in the late afternoon Saturday, after still getting in a quality amount of lying on my bed doing nothing, I headed downtown for the James River Splash and Dash.

The race included about two miles of running, followed by probably a quarter mile of tubing - not really the toughest endeavor ever. When the organizers explained the course though, it seemed uncomfortably confusing and I began to worry that I would die. Plus, as mentioned, running is hard.

Still, Barrett, Katrina and I were so prepared to show that race who was boss. Bow down to our toughness:

This picture was initially super giant when I pasted it, but I thought that would intimidate you too much.

After Wave 1, aka the wave of people who are actually good at running, set off, we steeled ourselves for go time. I promised Katrina I'd wait for her at the tubing section, and although I mentioned to Barrett that it would be nice of him to do the same for me, it was not necessary. (Spoiler alert: he chose not to. But that's okay!...)

And then we were off! For the first quarter mile or so, I ran really fast, as I often do during races. I was all prepared to keep up with Barrett the whole time and crush everyone and be awesome. Then I remembered that I am slow and, say it with me now, running is hard.

So I fell back a bit and had to have my soul slowly crushed as runner after runner passed me. That was not the greatest.

After a seemingly interminable amount of time (I suspect 20 minutes at most), I left the trail section of the run and headed towards the beach where the tubes were stored. Unsurprisingly, no one was there waiting for me. But I hung out until Katrina arrived, and together we set out for the tubing section.

And then I cheated, but not on purpose! We were supposed to go out around this buoy upriver from the launch point before floating with the current down to the return spot. I forgot about the buoy until it was too late, and found myself sitting helplessly in my tube, floating downriver, trying to paddle against the current slowly until Katrina actually completed the course and caught up to me. 

Perhaps as karmic punishment, shortly after she caught me I floated into a bunch of reeds. It was not great.

In this photo, Katrina has rescued me from the reeds and is pulling me down the river. Teamwork!

Once we freed ourselves from the tubes and headed up the super steep beach, I expected to immediately start running along like a character from Chariots of Fire, and was shocked to find that moving my legs seemed super, super difficult. So I gingerly walked up the stairs before working myself up to a brisk jog (Jogging is the worst, Chris!).

Someone (it might have been Clark Kent) who had finished the race several minutes before, then came walking back toward me and dared challenge me to a race to the finish, and once again, I set out at a powerful sprint, only to receive my last and final reminder that running is hard.

Still, I finished, and it was awesome, and then we went and ate dinner al fresco (summertime experience number three!) and drank beer.

Tomorrow: walking is, amazingly, also hard.

An idyllic weekend...

...followed by the grumpiest Monday ever.

I really want to blog about all the cool things I did this weekend and be witty and hilarious (and incorporate pictures!) but I'm feeling very grumpy at the moment. I'll do my best to recount how lovely my weekend was, and maybe that will lift my spirits on this slow, boring torturous first day of the week.

Over the course of this weekend, I participated in basically every stereotypical, required summertime event imaginable. That started Friday night with a trip to see the Lynchburg Hillcats play baseball, aided by a coupon for $5 tickets and the promise of $3 drink specials. Also, we were supposed to get hats.

BUT THE HATS WERE A LIE. The Facebook page promised a "Battle of Virginia" hat giveaway, in which game attendees could choose a Hillcats cap in the colors of either the University of Virginia or Virginia Tech. Now, not being a fan of either of those institutions, I wasn't really that jazzed about it. BUT I WANTED THE FREE HAT I WAS PROMISED.

Katrina and I arrived around 6:40, and I'm 96 percent certain we were among the first 1,000 fans at the game. There were a lot more people there then other times I've been to see the Hillcats, but...I do not think that the team has 1,000 fans at any point. Anywho, we were a little confused at not being handed our chosen hats immediately upon arrival, but found our way to the guest services kiosk where people seemed to be receiving said hats.

"Umm...we'd like our hats?" I said to the man behind the desk, as he stared at us blankly upon approach.

"Are you season ticket holders?" he asked.

"No..." we said, "Is it only for season ticket holders?"

When the man said yes I sort of brusquely muttered, "That was not made clear!" and stormed off in a huff.

I do not think it will affect this man's life at all. I recently did a similar thing to a cashier at Sheetz when I got tired of them never EVER having sprinkle donuts when I came in, and I'm pretty sure I was just mean to an innocent man who has no control over sprinkle donut production. But at least venting my rage about life's little unfairness-es makes me feel a wee bit better.

Long story short, I spent the rest of the game (which was quite a while, four plus hours and 11 innings - the Hillcats lost) eyeing every person in a hat and trying to work up the gumption to ask if they, too, were season ticket holders. I suspect that man just didn't like us.

Also, we saw a skunk.

I will end the blog post for now and come back later in the day to write part two, which will focus on Saturday's race and hopefully involve less vitriol about the unfair denial of hats. At a later date I'll write part three on Sunday, a day on which I went to church (madness), ran two miles then walked five, and also watched Interview With the Vampire. You know you want to read about all of that.