Partyin, partyin, yeah! (Mostly an entry about game shows, though)...

When we last left my trip home, I'd survived a terrifying Costco encounter with a bird and was falling into the loving arms of sleep after a full-day of driving.

Saturday, I woke up, dined on a queen's breakfast of like four cups of coffee and cold pizza, and prepared for my brother and sister-in-law's Labor Day party.

The party was pretty much your standard party stuff - drinking sangria and beer, eating foods, chatting with family members and others, having arguments about Syria and the size of parking lots in Munster, all that good stuff.

But then, come evening, my brothers, my sister-in-law, my brother's friend and I sat down to watch some television at the end of a long day. And what did we find on the TV? THE CHASE.

The Chase is a game show, imported from Britain, that airs on Game Show Network. When first viewed, the rules seemed to make absolutely no sense, especially if you come in in the middle of an episode.

But eventually we figured it out.

Basically, there's a team of three normal people who are competing against "The Beast," this dick who is like a British trivia genius. He matches up against them in various quiz sessions where he is "chasing" them toward the bank, essentially, at which point they either win their money or are eliminated if they get caught.

Then, whoever's left at the end do a final chase against him, with similar rules.

It's stupid, and confusing, and THE BEAST IS THE WORST!!!

I always wanted him to lose, AND HE NEVER DID. It got to the point where my brother Paul started rooting for the Beast, because he likes to root for a winner.

This may be the worst blog entry I've ever written. Baseball game to come soon, and hopefully that will be more interesting and lead to fame. FAME.

The time has come to set out my journey westward...

Here we go, the first of many a blog post about the exciting 10 days or so that I just lived. I'll try to be engaging and hilarious to make up for my lengthy absence, but I make no promises.

(Also, 10 bonus points to whoever can name what I'm referencing in the post's title. If no one gets it I'll give a second clue in the next entry.)

My week and a half of adventure began early in the morning on Friday, Aug. 30. It's been almost a year - since Thanksgiving 2012 - since I've made the lengthy trek home via car. I opted to fly for both Christmas and Easter, as though were fairly brief visits and the flying costs off a decent amount of travel time.

Still, there's something enticing about driving; as I put it a few times while home, it makes me the master of my own destiny. If I oversleep (as I did before my flight home for Easter), I'll be behind the schedule I'd set, but I'm still certain to make ti where I plan to go. And there's a certain allure to spending hours in a car, clearing your head, getting to know America, and laughing at amusing billboards.

That being said, driving home this time was pretty much the worst. experience. ever.

Nothing specific happened to make the drive so unbearable; in fact, on the way home I made pretty good time, conserved gas well, and didn't even have to drive the full 12 hours since I stopped in Indianapolis on the way. Plus, there's a new Katy Perry song out these days, always a plus for the long car trips. (Not for my voice/throat, or for anyone who happens to be driving next to me while I have my windows rolled down, but it's totally worth it.)

No, there's no heartbreaking story of getting pulled over or yelled at by random people in West Virginia or going to the world's most insane Wendy's (all previous Indiana to Virginia drive occurrences), but by about hour two of driving on 65 m.p.h. roads in Ohio, passing cops every 10 miles or so, I was so desperate to be on a plane it wasn't even funny.

Still, I made it to my brother's house in Indy, nommed on some pizza, and went with them to hit up Costco, fairly unscathed.

I think Costco is dumb, and this trip did not dissuade that impression. As Paul pointed out, he didn't feel like he was getting that great of deals, and you have to fight your way through a veritable warehouse to get a giant box of Cheez-its that isn't actually a giant box filled with Cheez-its but rather two normal-sized bags of Cheez-its placed in a slightly larger, occasionally comical, box.

Plus, occasionally there are birds:

No one but me seemed concerned about this bird flying around Costco. But I was super concerned.

Anywho, we made it home from Costco, drank beers and watched Walk the Line/high school football (don't ask) and had a generally pleasant evening.

More adventures adventures to come soon! Hopefully.

So many adventures to come!

But today I am sniffly and unmotivated. So here are the things you can look forward to reading about:

1) My trip home! Possible sub-adventures include various lengthy drives, family parties, Cubs game, etc. We'll see how many turn out.

2) Hippie music festival. Sooooo many thoughts on the hippie music festival.

3) Going to Charlottesville to see Barrett do his big race thing where he got this sweet patch. Coolest patch ever.

Hopefully I'll get started tomorrow, when not feeling sniffly.

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.