July 4 Weekend: Report

I have returned. It has been a busy four-day weekend. Since we had no work for the Fourth on Friday, I took Monday off too and had a nice mini-vacation. This wasn’t a big crafty-weekend.  They can’t all be, more’s the pity, although I did get in some good work on the two crochet kitties. They’re just waiting for the details!  I hope to finish them tonight.

I spent a good part of the weekend hiking.  One of the things I plan to do in the next few years is to hike the Virginia portion of the Appalachian Trail.  Madness, right?  When I was around 20 I decided I really wanted to do that after meeting someone who’d hiked the whole darn thing, all 2175 miles of it.  I never forgot, and now I’m working on doing just that. Lest you think I plan to wimp out by hiking “only” one state, the Virginia portion is a quarter of the trail, about 544 miles.  I imagine it will take me some time to get through, maybe about a month, a little less?  I’m not going to run the thing, after all.

A hike of such immense proportions requires gear (working on that), a love of the outdoors (got that), a love of camping (yep), a significant chunk of time in which to do it (hmmm) and of course, one very BIG, very important, time-consuming thing: training (argh!).  So, I’ve put a lot of time in at the gym, and this spring and summer has seen me start putting in time outside.  It’s been difficult - it seems like I spent my 20s getting out of shape, and now I’m spending my 30s getting back in shape.

It’s also difficult because it’s so hot here for so many months - going outside in July and August isn’t too great is sort of brutal.  As I’ve discovered quickly, there are special things to know about hiking in the hot sun and humidity.   It apparently takes a special toll on your body in terms of liquids and nutrients, and it seems kind of alarmingly easy to hurt yourself.

Due to the weather my hikes have been limited in duration, but I still managed to go 3 miles yesterday and around 6.5 miles today. For those of you who are familiar with Austin, that’s from the south 360/Mopac bridge to Zilker Park in the (very rocky) Barton Creek Greenbelt. I felt it. I worry - 6.5 miles is a long, long way from the number of miles I’ll need to complete the 544 mile goal.  But I guess you do what you can when you can, right?

So anyway, when I wander off from my sewing machine and crochet hook for days at a time, that’s a lot of what I’ve been doing.  Never say that I don’t challenge myself!