The Ice Cream Goddess

Here's another update. I'm really going to try and do them more often so they don't take me so long! Also, adding dates to the brief summary as per a request.

On the 14th we did ZERO miles and stayed in Hot Springs! Completely awesome. Today, 15th, we did 11 miles to spring mountain shelter. Not as many as we had wanted but we were a bit lazy and got a late start.

So my first zero day was pretty amazing. The waitress that had witnessed my ice cream failure the evening before brought us a half gallon of Eddy's thin mint ice cream and a pint of Ben & Jerry's phish food along with some contraband spoons from the restaurant. When I tried to pay for the ice cream she refused any money. Ice Cream Goddess you are amazing! (photo of her with UV below) On a side note, doesn't the sleeping bag liner dress look like an actual dress? It works out well since UV can wear it around town and keep normal clothes clean. After getting the most amazing kind of trail magic, the almost ordered kind, we sat across the street and ate all of it. Nitrous refused to help claiming he was full, which I just don't understand. After me and UV polished off the half gallon, getting some very odd looks from passing motorists, we shared the pint with Trophy Wife. All in all, amazing way to spend the afternoon.

That evening we (Me, Nitrous, UV, Trophy Wife and Bob) spent an hour soaking in the naturally hot water in a hot tub at the spa. So relaxing! UV had the idea to get Popsicles for the occasion but with less then optimal pre planning time. This resulting in all of us enjoying some slightly chilled juice tubes while our muscles finally felt good. It ended a great day but at the same time the day felt wrong. I hadn't hiked... I am so in the groove of hiking that spending hours of the day doing it is what makes my days normal. It felt good to get back on the trail today for a return to normalcy. I guess it doesn't really take that long to completely alter what you think of as normal.

Today's hike was not all that eventful except for the fact I saw my first potentially poisonous snake (photo below) and there was a fire tower (photo below as well). While the view from the tower was decent it reinforced that this view is my house now. It isn't surprising or new or all that breathtaking anymore. I have it for the majority of the day, all I have to do is look to the left or right and there is a view that "normal" people would fid amazing. Since I have become so desensitized to these sights I am going to try and capture what I refer to in my mind as the small beauties of the trail and maybe some of the more nitty gritty of trail life. Since I'm bored of taking pictures of random mountains I'm sure some of you are bored with the repetitiveness of them as well. Some of them will still be included but I'm going to try and mix it up more. We will see how that goes.