Weekend Explorations

      One of the new things that comes with self-employment is having my Saturdays off.  I have worked retail all of my working career up to this point, which means Saturdays have always been spent inside a store dealing with every variety of person you can possibly imagine.  For those of you that work retail, you know what I mean.  We get the pleasant thankful customer (very infrequently), the loud annoying customer, the can't ever please me customer, the I don't even know what I'm looking for customer, the I'm gonna let my kids run everywhere customer, the know it all customer, and the list could go on for days! Needless to say, I am not sorry to be away from that.
     Yesterday, with freedom on my mind, my boyfriend and I decided to go hiking.  So, I pack a picknick lunch and by 11am, we are headed up north with my little 5lb chihuahua, Chica, on my lap.  Where shall we go?? Yes yes, I know, hikers with any experience would have known exactly where they were going, would have been out of the house by 8am at the latest and have worn and brought proper hiking equipment.  But not us, no, we just wanted to get out in nature and enjoy our Saturday together.  So, off we went.
     Well, thanks to smart phones, we find a 5.5 mile hike up South Moat Mountain in Conway that sounds lovely.  It's described as a moderate hike 2.7 miles up, appropriate for families and dogs with 360 degree views at the top.  Perfect right? We get to the trail head at 1pm and realize that we didn't bring a backpack to carry the lunch in.  Well, now what?  Luckily I had an old backpack in my trunk that I used to use in college, not an ideal pack to carry up a mountain, but better than nothing.  Off we go, with Chica in tow.
     The trail starts off beautiful, nice wide path, uphill but not a horrible incline.  After about a mile, the incline changes dramatically!!  Chica bless her little legs, can't climb this, so up on my shoulder she goes, because I have not brought a backpack to put her in.  We are now climbing what looks more like a dried up river bed with loose rocks and boulders.  Now I'm sure we were not going straight up, but to my legs, it sure did feel like it.   I like to think that I'm in OK shape, but after twenty minutes of that, I was out of breath, light headed and had the shakes. Not off to a very good start for someone that is supposed to be in shape.  But, after a few minutes of rest to catch my breath, and a piece of fruit to get some sugar in me, off we go again.
     We finally get to a lovely plateau with a fabulous view.  This is the top I think, YES, I made it! Hallelujah!  Wrong, still more trial markers headed in the upward direction.  It can't be much farther, right??  Well, that's what my boyfriend kept telling me, and telling me, and telling me for another thirty minutes.  Now, Chica, after my bit of light headedness,
 has had to start climbing for herself and MAN was I amazed at how well she did!! We passed several hikers that were completely in awe that my little baby was climbing these big rocks.  She was a rock star. I on the other hand was half dead by the time we FINALLY made it to the top. But OMG what a view.  We had the entire top of the mountain to ourselves with views of Mt. Washington and all the surrounding mountains, a couple of lakes, the town of North Conway, and leaves that had just started to turn color.
     A picknick on the top of the mountain all by ourselves!!  The world belonged to us.  Such an amazing peace and so much beauty up there, I was so glad my boyfriend was able to drag me all the way to the top!
I may be sore today and possibly sore tomorrow as well, but what an adventure and I'm so proud of all three of us (Chica included) for tackling that mountain!