A great hike

I went for a hike today with my wife, brother and sister-in-law. We wended our way through deep coniferous forest along a rushing creek to a really gorgeous waterfall.  It was about a two hour hike in very warm weather but almost totally shaded.

We met lots of nice folks along the way including Amy, Daughter One’s fifth-grade teacher. She was one of the shining lights in our daughter’s education and it was so nice to see her with her husband and children and dog, clearly enjoying the day as much as we were.

This creek is a place where I spent a lot of time as a kid, and it’s pretty strongly identified in my psyche with some of my best memories of growing up. More recently, it’s a place we used to go when our daughters were young. One of my favorite family pictures was taken on the trail with the creek in the background.

This is the place where I gave myself my worst ever ankle sprain while performing in an ill-advised Cub Scout skit and where I was first given a job I would be in charge of (working on the trail). It was where I learned to make a fire without matches and where I accepted that there’s nothing inherently dangerous about nighttime.

My ashes will be scattered here. That’s assuming I’m not taken up bodily in an alien ship. And unless my survivors prefer another disposition (don’t want to put extra stress on a hard time). My brother does NOT get a vote!

This was a very special day that I could never duplicate and wouldn’t want to try.