I'm Kind of Like Grizzly Adams

This is my friend Mindy. When we moved here, I walked into church one Sunday and said, "Hmm... I'd better find a friend. I think I'll pick her." As it turns out, super choice. She was good enough that I haven't needed to find any others.

This weekend we decided to do some mountain biking. Here's how that went down.

1. Supposed to hook up with other friends in the mountains. "Hooking up" with people "in the mountains" can be a bit vague, and they might actually be hard to find... it being "in the mountains" and all.

2. Couldn't find friends right away. Bummer: friends had Mindy's kids' bikes. So we pulled off nearby where we thought we should meet them, and found this killer little stream.

3. Played in stream for an hour. Got very wet. Had lots of fun. Lost my sunglasses when they fell in the current. Bummer.


4. Discovered that rock bugs are real. Taught about them in 2nd grade science unit on camouflage. Thought they looked cool; sort of doubted their existence. Doubt no more.

4. Walked back up to car to get out lunch. Found this special delight:


5. Mindy and I worked on changing tire. Got very dirty. Here you will see her, dirty. It pays to be the one holding the camera. Our other friend showed up while changing tire, and got to take over and do rest of labor. Thanks Jeremy.

*Must be rough to be filthy and STILL so hot, right??

6. Finally got on some bikes. Yeaaaaaahhhh baby!!!

7. Had panic attacks. See this tunnel? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? We had to go through at least ten of them. PITCH BLACK. We had some headlights, but they were feeble. It was super cold, and completely dark. Stalacites hanging from the roof, dripping water onto us. I almost couldn't do it. Oh, and guess where the deer like to hang out? Yeah. In the caves. I watch the news. I know how these deer are nowadays. Totally unafraid of humans. Not only unafraid, but they hate us to the point where they attack. I could have been killed... or worse... maimed.

*Picture on right shows degree of darkness at end of cave, as well as deer contemplating vicious attack on bikers.


8. Did deep breathing exercises and survived. Hit the pinnacle, and looked over to see this:

Picture "A"

See that trail? That's where we were headed. It was breathtaking. We were up above everything, the weather was unreal, and the scenery was not to be believed.

9. Biked about 14 miles on dirt/gravel trails. Got around to the other side in one piece. Not too shabby.

All told, it was an amazing trip. The biking was pretty easy for us, but the kids worked their tails off. I missed mine terribly, but was super proud of Mindy's for being hard workers with good attitudes.

I was a little nervous driving home on the donut. It was a three hour ride with 2 women and 3 children on back roads at night. Not my number one choice for safety. We made it, however, and both showed up to church on time today... looking and smelling WAAAAYYY better than we did last night.