Hiking Adventure!

Hey, guys!

I promised that I would regale you about my little adventure from the other day, so that's what this post is about. And by the way, writing about a recent trip is actually a pretty good writing exercise. Whether you traveled to a different country or a different state or if you just go for a hike, it's good practice to write down what happened. Even a local event like a carnival or an art festival is a good setting for a short story or a scene in a larger work.

So here's my little adventure:

My boyfriend told me that his roommate was planning a small picnic for Memorial Day and asked if I wanted to go. Since he had gone with me to a family picnic the day before, I agreed. So it was going to be me, my boyfriend, his two roommates, and their friend. For a picnic.

So I run to the store for some fruit and then I head over to my boyfriend's place to find out that we were going to get lunch at Subway to take with us and that we were going to go for a hike before stopping to have our picnic. What my boyfriend and I assumed was that we were going to drive someplace, take a leisurely walk through the woods to a spot where we could eat and hang out.

That's what we assumed.

We all got into our cars (my boyfriend and I in my car so that we could follow his two roommates and their friend). We get on the highway and I start to get confused about the distance we were going. That was when it had occurred to me to ask my boyfriend where we were going.

"I don't know," he said, "Something Hill."

I guessed where we were going and I guessed right. I was no stranger to the location; I had gone hiking there as a kid with my dad and my brother. But we still followed his roommate because she had the route on her phone and, although I knew where the hiking trail was, I didn't know how to get there offhand.

So guess what happened? We hit a detour and had to pull over in a gas station to figure out our plan. I discovered that my GPS had a detour button for exactly our situation, so I plugged it in, entered in the name of the road that the trail was on, and my boyfriend's roommates followed us.

I got us to the right road, no problem. Then we went back to following my boyfriend's roommate since I didn't know exactly where the trail was. Turns out that we just had to keep going straight on that road until we saw the parking area that led to the trail.

By some miracle, my boyfriend found some bug repellent in my car. Remember, I didn't know that we were going to hike up a hill. Even when I found out about hiking, I thought we were taking a short walk through the woods. So I wasn't prepared.

Then we started hiking.

Keep in mind that the last time I went hiking was when I was probably ten years old and we had to take plenty of breaks because we were with my dad. Turns out that my boyfriend's roommate doesn't like breaks. Never mind that I was totally out of shape for a hike. I swear to God, after walking about fifty feet uphill, my legs were burning and I was already panting.

I'll have to admit that it was kind of fun to antagonize my boyfriend's roommate about that. And I wasn't the only one. Their other roommate started teasing her about wild hybrid dogs. So, in retrospect, saying, "If I had known we would go hiking!" over and over wasn't really the worst thing said to her.

Although I am unaccustomed to hiking and bug bites and climbing rocks and, well, exercise in general after that long winter, the view was really worth it.

When we got to the top, my boyfriend's roommates and their friend went right to the edge to take in the view and snap some pictures. My boyfriend and I were more comfortable a good ten feet from the edge. But we could still appreciate the view. The sky was cloudy but blue and beneath us was a sea of green. If you've ever been so high up that the trees are far away and beneath you, then you know what it is like to feel big and on top of the world and incredibly small all at the same time.

I sat with my boyfriend on a rock with my head on his shoulder and admired the view beneath us and beyond us.

We were sweaty and gross and tired after the hike, but I would've done it again.

And I highly recommend that you guys get outside sometime this summer. Just make sure that when your friend says "picnic" she really means picnic.

Happy reading (or hiking)!