39/52, Wheeler

Last recorded hike was 24/52

25 was April 30th at Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, we hiked the Rock Garden trail at Charon's Garden and the Tower Trail.

26 was Tent Rocks on the 1st

27 was hiking on the caldera on the 2nd

28 was looking for dino tracks outside Mesilla, NM the 3rd

29 was backpacking at White Sands the 4th

30 was hiking back out! the 5th

We also did a mile+ walk around the Carlsbad Living Desert Zoo

31 was the walk into Carlsbad Caverns and around the Big Room and back out on the 6th

32 was walking to the highest point in Louisiana on the 7th

33 was backpacking to Alum Gap the 15th

34 was the hike to Ranger Falls on the 15th as well

35 was hiking out and the extra hike to Suter Falls on the 16th

36 was the Lake Trail in GA the 24th

37 was walking around Paradise Gardens and then the Marble Mine Trail the 25th

38 was Richard Martin end to end on the 29th and

39 was today, 9 miles at Wheeler.

*whew*

I have a sort of arbitrary way to split hikes.  If it's a worthwhile hike, it's its own hike, even if it's the same day as another hike.  If I walk a couple different places, but the total is 5 miles or less, I will lump them together.  So Ranger Falls at 5 miles RT on top of the 4 miles to get back to Alum Gap is 2 different hikes.  But the 4 miles out and the less-than-2 mile hike to Suter Falls is just one.

I am at 352 miles for the year, 'need' to be at 500 at the end of June to get caught up.  That's an average of nearly 5 miles a day every single day in June.  hahahaha  Hmmm, I wonder if I can do it? We walked the 11 miles o the RM trail in under 4 hours, today we did just over 9 miles in 3 hours. It's not an all day thing any more to get in double digit mileage.  It's just...boring!  I keep trying to drum up hiking buddies, but no good.  Karen can commit to once a week, Andrea just after work and she's only able to walk 2-3 miles.  Melissa is too far away and works all week now, so...I guess I need to just buck up and go on my own, though I know I have friends with free time who claim to want to be in better shape.  Oh well, words vs action.  Karen and I outlined all of our 'fears' for hiking alone today. Then rated them.

1. animal bite
2. falling, particularly with ankle or head injury

Other people ranked pretty low as we are both aware that crazed killers will drag you down an alley, but don't really care to lurk behind a tree on some random trail.  Trail-based attacks number in the single digits over the span of a decade.  A woman is raped in the US every 107 seconds.  That's what everyone fears, right?  What your family worries about and other women and husbands and fathers who don't want you hiking alone. That you will be raped in the woods because it happens ALL over at the rate of 33 times an hour all day every day.  Once every 5 minutes somewhere in this country a 911 call is made and a rape reported.  Think of how many never tell.  It's terrifying.  1 in 5 women will be sexually assaulted, 1 in 4 of those, before she's 18.  These are things we need to talk about, but these are not things that need to keep women out of the woods.

Hypothermia, getting lost and rain in general are other considerations.  It was kind of interesting to lay everything out there and see that at the end of the day, we are mostly worried about comfort.

Anyway, that's me all caught up.  Tomorrow is an exciting day that's not a hike!  Chan has a list of places she wants to go before she starts work in 2 months (ack!) and we are knocking off the first one.

James Floyd State Park and Paradise Gardens, Summerville, GA

My actual paid-for url .com website is over the limit for photos and until that's fixed, I am stuck doing trips here.  I don't mind so much as I have a need to organize things a certain way and this is not my way.  Trips go on the travel site.  Homeschool stuff goes on the homeschool site and everyday stuff goes here.  Non-family centric stuff goes on other blogs, depending on what it is I am sharing. Neat, orderly and totally blown apart by data limits.  Grrr

Two queen mattresses and a twin cot, I do like loads of space in my tents!

The best part of camping with friends is the flux and flow of the kids

I took a long evening walk on my own, to catch the sunset.  I started off going the totally wrong way because GA state park hiking maps are REALLY vague!  I saw a deer, then a swamp.  ACK

THERE'S the actual trail.  It's the Lake Trail. 

Campfire at Katy's, yay!

Working on a shared project via chat.  I love that even the 4 year old can contribute!

This was climbing on Chan when I woke up.

My sweet Ben and Also Cornbread

We went on Wednesday to Paradise Gardens:

WHY

I liked the composition much more with my foot in it

Not so sure this is legit product.

Back at camp, lunch.  I have a sensible avocado and tuna wrap

Chan has a more sensible avocado, tuna, nutella and turkey jerky wrap.

Then, goes to sleep for the whole afternoon

Nearly everyone else headed on the Marble Mine Trail to the...marble mine.

We saw this guy:

the mine

the softball frog in the back of the mine. *shudder*

Another campfire at Katy's, this time Bea, who is around 5 months old, put on a show.  Oh, she is CUTE and chubby and gooey grinning with bluuue eyes and a wisp of hair and when she nursed she did that grunt/snuffle that I had forgotten about and I felt it in my bellybutton and my toes, that PULL, even though she was rooting around on her own mama 10 feet away.   There is something to the weight and heft of a fat and happy baby, one that throws their head back to laugh and nearly topples you both.  What joy, that moment when delight is had by all simply because the baby is amused.

Thursday was the last dance class, so we scooted back for that.  Chan starts work in August and won't be taking dance any more.
Birdie came over to eat his cereal with us, he has SUCH a personality and talks and talks.  Chan told him we were leaving, he had to go back to his site and he said, "No I don't, you are just being rude!"  hahahaha  The day before he delighted in telling me "If my grandma had seen that snake, she would have peed in her pants!"  Most of his rambles include elements of trucks and/or guns.  Jake, at 3, was more into dinosaurs, but it's all the same at that age-the really big and powerful thing you can master with vocabulary and imagination.

Chan drove us home.
We left Ben in Georgia!

SWEET BENNNNNNYYYYYY!!!

He's last been spotted going to the community pool opening with some Bothwellians, so I am certain he's happier eeking out a little more buddy time than he would have been putting away camping gear!