Hiking: My Love Hate Relationship

Elijah & Siah under "the rock", I seem to remember taking a similar picture of Mr. & Mrs. Edwards under this same rock.

I love hiking! But man do I hate hiking. It kills my knees and about halfway up a mountain I am always wondering why I talk myself into tormenting my body to climb a silly rock. After all, there are plenty of mountains I could just drive up, Mt Washington, Mt. Cadillac. They are everywhere!

Caleb had so much fun riding up the mountain, but he also wanted to hike; unfortunately he is just too small.

This Spring I convinced Tyler (who officially hates hiking now) to take us all to Tumbledown. When I say all, I mean ALL 6 of us. John (you can't keep him from hiking, Tyler's opposite) joined us, and to my wonderful surprise so didn't Samantha (my long lost twin sister!). I have never had so much fun hiking. Honestly! I went through my "I hate hiking" phase rather early. I don't know if it was because of the added 25 lbs on my back accelerating my rate to exhaustion and thus resulting in me entering the "survival" status long before the big "rock" or what. But what a fun time.

John and Samantha were great helps with the boys. Samantha helped Siah overcome the large rocks.

Interestingly at the base of the best mountain in Western Maine is a wonderful little hand written note: WARNING! Trail not suitable for dogs, kids, or unseasoned adults. Well, as it turns out we had a dog, lots of kids, and well, I didn't smell like seasoning so I would say at least I was unseasoned. Needless to say, it is a very good thing that three of us adults and 2 of the kids had hiked this same trail before. But it was certainly interesting to hear other hikers say to us "have you hiked this before" when they realized the extent of our party.

I think we have a tree hugger on our hands.

As it turns out, everyone thrived on this hike (even during the lemon squeeze): Elijah and Siah hiked the whole thing, Andrew hiked a little, and Caleb hiked none. I am glad that we hiked Tumbledown; especially for the boys. They loved it and hopefully we can keep Tyler hiking long enough for the boys to grow up loving the great outdoors!

One of the best parts of hiking is enjoying a good ole' Eli's soda at the bottom!