What is this “hiking” thing you speak of?
My mind never truly shuts down. On the nights that I do not feel like sleeping, my mind tends to wander all over — past, present, and future. Tonight it is time to set the wayback machine to early July, 2002.
Ashley had the better part of the week off from working at Girl Scout camp and had come out to visit me during my last summer cooping in Huntsville. We had not yet been dating for a year and were soon to become engaged — the ring already being at my father’s store, and all. It was a beautiful summer day and Ashley wanted me to experience a little bit of her world. Having not been much of an ‘outdoorsy’ child, I had never truly been hiking before, but I knew of some trails on the mountain so I happily agreed. Forty-five minutes later, we were getting out of my car and setting foot on the hiking trail.
Ashley was like a kid in the proverbial candy store, totally in her natural element. I enjoyed being out in the woods as well, but I think I was just happy seeing how much Ashley enjoyed pointing things out to me as we moved along the path. Now, it being such a nice day, we thought that it would be no problem to follow one of the longer trails since we had nothing else to do that day. Thirty minutes into the hike, the heavens opened and rain began to fall. “Not to worry,” I said, “surely there is not much farther to go. We might as well push on until the end.” Two hours later, we finally finished up the trail back where we started, at my car. The rain had stopped possibly an hour before — long enough ago that we were no longer drenched, but recently enough that it was still hot and muggy. With all the rain and misery of hiking farther than we expected, we both still had a lot of fun that day just being with each other. On the long drive back to the house I was staying at, I looked over at Ashley and felt even more connected to her than before, having shared this time in the outdoors with her.
February 28th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Awwwww. :sniff: Where’d y’all go hiking?
[My mind never shuts down either, man.]
February 28th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
It was one of the trails on Monte Sano.
February 28th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
I remember that day. We talked about a lot of things…like how I was scared to start graduate school and terrified at the thought of moving to Huntsville alone. Oh, how far we have come since then. It’s hard to believe that that was almost four years ago. My, how the time flies. I remember that day clearly though, the rain, the thunder, the huge puddles that I enjoyed stomping in (we were wet already, why not). It truly was a great day! I really enjoyed being with you and showing you new things, things that you had never thought to stop and look at. Little did we know that this hiking trip would set precedent for a later hiking trip in Gatlinburg, but that’s another story
This just goes to show that sometimes the simplest things in life can mean the most
I love you