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Adventure
Valentine's Day is around the corner - do you have plans?! You could do the usual Valentine's Day date of roses and candlelit dinner, but if you're bored by the same-old-same-old then consider an alternative Valentine's date. (Added bonus - you can do a Galentine's Day with these same activities!)
SLED DOG FAIL! Ryder doesn't want you to watch this video - Poor Ryder has been the laughingstock of the household the past few days. He's a spoiled snow dog who loves to pull on his leash when we're out hiking and backpacking, so I figured it might be fun to do a little sledding with him. I didn't have a sled so I grabbed a lid from a plastic bin and headed out with precious poopsie. Too bad he just whined and crawled into my lap. Useless snow dog.
Let's say you've got a badass in your life. Maybe they run. Maybe they hike. Maybe they climb. Maybe they play soccer, bike, swim, do triathlons, backpack, do Crossfit, skydive, or maybe they do all these things and even more. So what do you get a badass for a holiday gift? You get them whatever makes them badass-er!
The latest issue of “Runner’s World” says on the cover “BE BADASS!” and I genuinely thought for a moment it was going to have some deep insight on how to be badass: run ultramarathons maybe, or win a mountain race along a razor thin ridgeline, or help soldiers overcome PTSD through running, or skydive from a plane and then run a marathon (yes, that’s a thing!). There are so many ways to be a running badass, but there’s no advice on how to be one.
Mammoth Cave National Park campground was busy, but thankfully not crowded. Kids ran around and shouted gleefully on bikes and scooters and adults sat back in camp chairs swigging beer. I curled up in my hammock and fretted over the next day - whether McCrae and I would be accepted on the wild cave tour or if we’d make it through all the obstacles without getting stuck and (for my part) without having a mental freak-out. There was little information online about the Mammoth Cave Wild Cave tour, a major spelunking trip lasting 6 hours and covering 5 miles underground through some truly wild and rugged paths.
Climbing means an intimate knowledge of gravity. My friend Emily S. and I started climbing at the Triangle Rock Club gym in Morrisville, and one bright and early morning before work in an empty gym we played around on the bouldering wall. Fun fact: bouldering is a pain. The guy working the gym desk told us the V0 bouldering routes are about equivalent to 5.8 or 5.9 top rope routes (Emily and I had been sticking to the super beginner friendly 5.5 to 5.7 routes). So the bouldering routes meant a lot of falling. A LOT. And that's hard when you're not used to falling.
Memorial Day weekend threatened rain, but on Oak Island, a barrier island of North Carolina, the days were gorgeous. I had spent Saturday with girlfriends on the beach and on Sunday McCrae came down to join me. It had rained torrentially the night before - the remnants of a tropical storm moving landward - and the post-storm swells beat hard against the beach at high tide in the afternoon. It looked like great body-surfing conditions, and McCrae and I grinned at each other and took off into the breakers.
It's always tough coming down from the endorphin rush of a wild adventure, whether it's an epic trip or just an insane weekend getaway. But on the bright side I've got plenty of photos to sort through and I've got a few big trips this summer that I need to plan. That should stave off the worst of the Monday blues for now as I happily daydream of adventure still to come.
