Hike One

So, it was a warm, sunny-ish day, and I went on a hike, for the first time this year.  I wasn't planning on it--I was wearing the wrong pants and the wrong shoes--but I felt like I ought to.  For various boring and emotional reasons.

I drove way up north, passing four different potential hiking trails, to get to the one I first hit during the pandemic (it was closed halfway up due to the winter the first time, and closed due to the COVID pandemic every time afterward).  The last time I'd gone, I lost all cell service a mile or so before reaching the path, but they seem to have put up a new tower, because I still had during my walk.

It's still officially closed for the season, with signs that said the bathrooms and drinking fountains at the base weren't accessible, but I found both of them working, so we must be days or hours before reopening for the summer (the urinal didn't flush, though, I found out only after using it.  Sorry).

Everything is green, the sky is blue, and though I saw no animals, something moved through the brush higher up on the trail from me, and left only a waving branch when I tried to get a look.  I assume it was a jackalope.

I thought I was the only person hiking the trail, but as I got up to the most photogenic part of the climb, I saw an older couple coming down the trail toward me.  And I had to push them off, Your Honor, you understand.

I went up another quarter mile or so, all familiar terrain, even though I think I only ever went there in 2020 (maybe a single time the next year), and suddenly, I could go no further.

The trail was covered by a strange landslide of snow, effectively ending any further progress (unless you wanted to risk going over the hill of ice).  I took a couple of pictures of it, but nothing quite captured how impressive it was.*

In front of the pile was a sign that read "TRAIL ENDS - DO NOT CROSS."  But I didn't need that sign (shoulda taken a picture of it, though).  All the way up the hill was one long snowy portion, with no snow anywhere else.  

So, I had no choice but to turn around and go back down the hill.  No big deal, but I remember literally running down the hill in the past, and I'm glad I didn't, because there were a couple of places where the hiking trail was cracked, from either landslides or tree roots pushing up the concrete (or possibly the Great Old Ones trying to emerge from whence they slumber), and I'd have gone sprawling.

I got to my car and drove home, aware that this might be the last time I ever go there.  Hmm.

*And I was glad that the old couple had seen something so majestic right before their unfortunate fall(s).

10-27

Day 4

Today was Jeff's birthday, and I don't think I ever wished him a good one.*

I asked him, years ago, if he had ever been to the Black Forest, and he said he hadn't, but his wife likes to go.  So, when we were compiling a list of things I'd like to do when I came over here, the Schwartzwald was on it.  It was going to be an all day thing, so we loaded onto a train that went to the main station, then onto another train that went out into the country.

The trains were so clean, it blew me away.  At the same time, because I was facing backward, I got motion sick.  Emily told me that I need to always face forward if I didn't want to be sick.  After we got off at the station and walked through a town with the ridiculous name of Bad Wildbad, I was feeling much better.

Jeff and me.

Apparently, they call it the Black Forest because the trees grow so closely together that it's dark around them, NOT because of the unspeakable presence of great evil within, or the atrocities that have been committed there over the years, or even that the bark of the trees is black.  

But still, it was enjoyable.  The most visually impressive thing about the forest was the green lichen that grows over the rocks and tree trunks.  I openly defiled the spirits of the woodland by taking pictures of the damn-ed Yo-Gabba-Gabba dolls that were unfortunately still at the bottom of my backpack.  But I have a sickness (many, I've been told).

I particularly liked the layers of orange/brown leaves all over the ground, that made a great contrast to the green of the trees and the moss.

There were not a lot of people out and about, so we had plenty of privacy.  You could feel like you were alone out there.  Every once in a while, there would be other hikers, or somebody on one of those electric bicycles, but all you'd have to do would be to walk off the path and into the woods, and never be seen again.

Jeff has foot problems, so he needed to stop and rest from time to time, but I quite enjoyed walking the trails and seeing the many, many, many options at crossroads and new trails (guess that's the difference between woods that have stood for a thousand years and ones only indians used a hundred fifty years ago).  There was also a raised platform up in the treetops where children could walk (and the occasional Ewok), complete with a slide down at the end of it.  We did not take that path, though.

There were some cool carvings for the kids at the end, but nothing creepy or morbid.  Unfortunately.

There were thousands of mushrooms, mostly white and gray, but this one was the coolest one I've ever seen.  Emily's picture turned out much better than mine, though.

Oh, I almost forgot.  This was the coolest vista we saw, with an open section that seemed like a special effect on a green screen.  I took two photos of it, but am posting the one that isn't hampered by including me in it.

I took many pictures, and the quality of the light was such that they all came out fairly well.  At the end of the trail was a restaurant and ski chalet, and nobody spoke English there, so I had to have Emily translate the menu for me.  Nothing sounded familiar to me (turns out they had German pancakes I could've eaten, but ah well), so I ended up getting potato salad and sauerkraut.  In a dozen years I wouldn't have guessed I'd enjoy such a thing, but I ate it all, and it tasted unusual, but fine.  Everybody was drinking beer, and Emily told me that the drinking age there is sixteen . . . if you're alone.  If you're with your family, you can chug all you want, even when small.

Eventually, we made our way down the trail, choosing a different path this time (many led to the same place, just with different distances on the signs), and the weather was great, neither cold nor hot.  We had ridden a tram-type thing to get up there, and had to wait for it to go down again, and by the time it came, there was a big group, and I guess I've been spoiled my whole life by not having strangers jammed up next to me every day.**

The countryside was pretty, but the train moves so fast, it's hard to get any pictures or look at any one thing.  Nobody has Pepsi here, so every place has Coke, but they also had Coke Zero Sugar, which I probably drank a hundred dollars' worth of.  In other words, four bottles and three cans.

I had started feeling sick during the day, but didn't want to complain, and hoped I could just tough it out for as long as it lasted.  Jeff wanted to see SEE HOW THEY RUN at his local movie theater, but the trains kept getting delayed (first ten minutes, then fifteen, and on and on until one hour, to the point that he was worried we'd miss it unless we took a cab).  When they finally got sorted, the train was very packed, but we made it to the station in time to take another one to where his theater, the Corso, is.

The movie was alright, not great, not bad, but the little movie theater was cool, and both the employees (one was the owner) spoke fluent English.  I wanted to ask the female employee if she had seen SMILE (it was playing after our film--they show four movies each day, but only one showing each, on two screens), but they were too busy.  The tickets were a bit cheaper than we'd pay in the States, but the concessions were considerably cheaper, the kind of prices I would actually pay in the U.S., instead of simply sneering at the folks that had forty dollars to spend on popcorn and a Coke.

Riding the bus in the States (even in places like Chicago and Salt Lake), you get the dregs of society (those who are particularly dirty, mentally ill, or out to make trouble), but here, everybody rides it, and they keep it much cleaner and well-maintained.  There's something kind of cool and comunal about that, but what do I know, I may have misspelled "communal."

We got home around eleven or so, which is insanely late for Jeff, but not so much for me.  Even so, I fell asleep rather early, which must mean jetlag has some truth to it.

Exercise: Yes (26)

*A good thing too, as his birthday is actually on the 29th.

**I know what you're saying: Of COURSE you've been spoiled your whole life.  But sometimes these are hard to see from the outside--like that little girl sitting near me here at the bus terminal who keeps whining about the cat ears her mother has provided her for her costume.  All of these old Europeans, Asian youths, and corpulent Americans are jealous of her, despite her complaints.

Blog 6/6 to 6/9

6/6

I'm going to try to get some writing done on "Balms & Sears," the first I've managed since the Star Wars Celebration.  Tonight, Marshal and I are finally going to sit down to record an episode or two about our trip (my cough is pretty much gone, but I still had to stop and catch my breath when I went running last night).

Writing or Exercise:  Writing

6/7

We watched the latest episode of "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," and again, an excellent episode.  I don't know how they managed it--except for the Original Series, no "Trek" has had this great a first season, and so consistent.  It's not really fair to watch "Obi-Wan Kenobi" afterward, since that show is so thoroughly average.

Writing or Exercise: Writing

6/8

Here I am, back at the cabin already.  You'd think I'd have everything figured out by now.

I've seen so many deer today, probably because there aren't so many people around as there were Saturday.  At one point, I was watching the family of deer next door when I saw movement low to the ground.  I thought it was another rock chuck, but it was bigger and flatter.  It was a badger.  And as I watched it moving, a second, smaller badger came up to meet it.  Well, I wasn't sure what to do, but my brother's rifle sits on the cupboard, and I got it down, went outside . . . and they were gone.  The deer continued to sit around there, dumbly uninterested, but the badgers had either heard me, smelled me, or sensed me, and went to ground.  I waited for them to return, but they never did.  Could I have shot one, and actually killed it, from that distance?  We will never know.

I picked up the DVD of 1954's OKLAHOMA!, and watched it here, instead of doing something productive.  I just didn't want to reach my deathbed and have my last words be "I wish I'd watched more Rodgers & Hammerstein."  Like so many elderly folks reportedly say.

There were parts of the film that were totally magical, and some fun songs, but man, the dancing.  There was an extended dance sequence where the main two characters were replaced by stunt dancers that made me long for the sweet embrace of the grave. 

Writing or Exercise: Exercise

6/9

I really ought to write, but man, I just can't bring myself to do it.  Imagine a Bizarro Universe where going jogging or jumping rope is more appealing to me than writing.  But that's where we are.*

I did do one productive thing this morni--shoot, it's afternoon now, how did that happen?--ng: I selected a five minute sample from the audiobook of "Hatchling" to send to Audible, which means the recording is completely finished (though I may have to re-do the closing credits, if I said 2021 instead of '22 on there [has it been that long I've been working on it?], and then I'll be done).  Of course, I realized that the voice of Rick is completely different at the start of the audiobook from where it is at the end, and that tempts me to sit down and re-do all those lines so they match, but eff it, that could go on forever (I mentioned recently listening to the audio of "Newfound Fame" and thinking I could add a new scene and redo one section, where there's a digitally-inserted Brown Depths Monster and Alonzo Moss shoots first and misses at point blank range, but I didn't do it).

I interrupted my time-wasting when I heard a sound in the other room, and came out to find . . . the front door was wide open.  My guess is a gust of wind blew it open, but still, the imagination revs up.  Imagine if that happened in the middle of the night.

Even though I watched it a full 24 hours ago, that "The Farmer & the Cowman Should Be Friends" keeps echoing in my head, over and over again.  Yesterday, I was thinking I'd check out more Oscars & Hammerstein movies from the library . . . but now I sort of wish I'd never watched it at all.

I went for a pretty good hike at the cabin in the afternoon because I was tired of sitting around inside, and I hadn't been hiking much this year.  I walked down the hill in search of the frogsong you can hear as the shadows lengthen each day.  It's only Thursday, so there were no other people around (I heard somebody working construction in the distance, but didn't see anyone), and I walked through people's yards trying to find a path down to a trio of ponds that are surrounded by brush, where I could hear the frogs singing.  Of course, when I got there, I couldn't see them, and they'd shut up if I got very close.  I saw one frog hopping through the bushes, but when I put down my backpack to try and catch it, it was gone.

Hiking back up the hill was slower going than going down, and it struck me as oddly lonely for some reason.  Eventually, I got back to the cabin and worked on audio editing until I was no longer hot.

Even though I had hiked during the day, I still chose to go on a run around ten at night.  I was hungry, and thought I could reward myself with some orange chicken, but ONLY if I exercised, so I did the whole darn run, and found myself abnormally sweaty when I made it back. 

I did eventually sit down and write the first few paragraphs of a story I'd come up with about a dozen years ago, where a man and woman are forced to raise an alien child as their own (I even drew a couple of sketches of what the creature was going to look like), but I threw those plans away when I saw MAN OF STEEL.  But here we are, all these years later, and I thought I'd give it a try, since I'd been thinking about the opening since Lindsay Lohan was considered talented.  Maybe I can make something of it.***

Writing or Exercise: Both

*I promised Marshal I would write a story with a positive portrayal of a step-parent relationship this year, and I keep kicking around an idea of a stepdad taking his son out to look at a college, or to give him the talk about sexual intercourse and how Wang Chung is the most underrated band of the Eighties, or maybe to give him his first driving lesson . . . and then something happens, but I can't think of what that something would be, and I'd rather listen to the audio commentary of OKLAHOMA! than to figure that out (or worse, put in the second disc and listen to the SECOND commentary, having finished the first one).

**That movie was lousy enough I should've thrown all my plans away afterward, but it was some plotpoint or some line of dialogue that Zod had that made me think, "Damn, that was what my story was going to be about.  Why didn't I write it when I had the chance?"

***Spoiler: Nope, I won't.

Blog 5/15 -17

 5/15

My spam email for today says, "Congrats RishOut! You Have Been Accepted!"  It felt pretty good, even without clicking on it.

My nephew, nearly five now, is finally old enough to go on a hike with me.  So, I chose the easiest one around, figuring he would get tired a mile or so in and I'd end up carrying him.  But I never did.  In fact, once we were done, he insisted on going faster than me down the trail, despite me saying, "Slow down, dude, you're gonna fall."  And darn it, he didn't.

He told me he was thirsty, right from the start, and there was a drinking fountain in the park next to the bottom of the trail . . . but it wasn't turned on.  So I told him, "We can stop and take a drink when we reach the bridge."  Which we did.

Then I told him, when we get to the stream, there are places where you can stick your face in the water and drink like that, which seemed to really appeal to him.  But the water levels are MUCH lower this year than they were in 2020 and 2021, the other times I hiked this trail, and in fact, the riverbed was bone dry half a mile from the waterfall.

This is the fifth or sixth time I've made that particular hike, and it was the busiest I've seen it, probably because it wasn't too hot and wasn't too cold.  There was a family that was playing at the edge of the top of the waterfall, and when their mother told them to line up for a picture, one of the kids knocked over his metal water bottle, and the waterfall took it.  She tried to retrieve it before it went over, and the mom started yelling about letting it go, and "It's not worth your life!"

So my nephew and I took off to the bottom of the waterfall, and were the first to arrive to see the condition of the water bottle, which was now in four pieces at the base of the falls (the lid had broken into two, the neck had snapped off, and the rest of the bottle was smashed, but intact).  And the kid just walked into the falls to grab it . . . which soaked him in icy-cold runoff water.

But hey, at least I didn't have to go in too.

Writing or Exercising: Exercising

5/16

I didn't leave myself much time to write at the library today, but let's see if I can't get a couple hundred words in.

I got a bit in, finishing the scene I started last Thursday or so.  I know a real writer (yes, I talk about Real Writers a bit too much, don't I?) would have finished the scene by Saturday, I'm okay with being only semi-real.

Back on May the 4th, because it was Star Wars Day, cable television was showing a marathon of SW movies, and at the end of the day, ROGUE ONE was on.  I figured I'd sit down and watch it (it was at the part where they leave the Yavin IV base and call themselves "Rogue One").  But it was Pan & Scanned, and there were commercials, and after about fifteen minutes, I realized that I could just switch over to Disney+ and watch it there, unedited and in the correct aspect ratio.

And there was a moment when the big Walkers with the orange doors on them attack, when one of the alien Rebel characters shouted, "AT-AT!" and it gave me pause.  He actually said the name out loud . . . so why is there still argument over how you pronounce it?  Of course, I've said it to rhyme with bat-bat for forty years now (well, thirty-eight and a couple of months, technically), but over the last decade or so, a contingent of fans (ALL YOUNGER THAN ME) have been saying the letters aloud, like Ay-Tee Ay-Tee, claiming that that makes more sense.*

Writing or Exercising: Writing 

5/17

My story "Balms & Sears" is about a fourteen/fifteen year old boy who is able to heal people by touching them, and today I was writing a part where he explains to two of his friends about his abilities.  "How long have you been able to do it?" Corwyn asks, and Alec tells him he was five years old the first time he remembered doing it.

And then, for no reason that I could say, I wrote that scene out, not as dialogue (as I usually would), but as a vignette.  I figured I'd delete it and share it on my podcast, but then I thought, What if it was the opening scene?  A prologue that shows what the story's gonna be about, instead of how I've written it, where I tell the reader, '"Alec Brownwood had a unique ability . . ."?

Huh.

Writing or Exercising: Writing 

*Though, Bossk as my witness, I've never heard anyone say "Tee-Eye-Eee Fighter" and I would commit first degree manslaughter if I ever did.

December Sweeps - Day 680

Oh, regarding yesterday's post.  Someone informed me that a "palindrome" is not the filthy, illegal sexual act that I thought it was, but merely a word that reads the same frontwards and backwards, like "Hannah," "kayak," "racecar," and "buntcake."  I'm sorry about the misunderstanding.

I REALLY ought to go on a hike today.  I asked Big to encourage me, and he said, "You can do it!" in Rob Schneider's voice.  And that's hard to ignore.

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In December: 1200

Wow, the hike was rough.  But hey, I did it, and am a stronger person for it.  Or not. 

It was a fairly warm winter day, at least compared to when it was snowing or freezing, so I jumped in the car, sans coat or gloves, and headed to the base of the mountain as fast as I could manage.

There was snow on the ground, all the way up the trail.  In other words, a mile hike up the mountain in snow.  Right as I started up, I passed a man on crutches coming down.  Not only did he have crutches, but he had a service dog with him (the dog jumped up on me twice).  The crutches guy said, "You going up there now?  It's gonna be dark soon."  "I'll be alright," I said, "since the snow will reflect the light."  "Yeah, but you're going up by yourself, without a coat?  Do you at least have spikes on your shoes?"  "No," I said, "but if you . . ."

I didn't dare complete the statement.  If you, a guy on frickin' crutches, could do it, then I should be able to too."  "I'll be okay," I said.  "Thoughts and prayers, man," the stranger said, and hobbled back down the trail.

Push-ups Today: 100
Push-ups In December: 1223

I had given myself more time in December to get to the top of the trail than I had in November, but I hadn't counted on the terrain being much, much more difficult.  I'd loaded an audiobook on my phone to listen to, a self-help book I'd wanted to read for a long time.  But it did make me feel kind of bad instead of good (I probably should've listened to music instead).  I trudged up the hill, and when I passed the first sign (the one that tells you how far you've gone versus how far there is left to go), I realized I wasn't going to make it.  Pretty soon, my shoes would be soaked, then my socks, and my hands and ears would be cold, and I was going so slowly it would be dark before I was even halfway up.

Some hikers came down, but not many.  There weren't even a pair of horny twenty-somethings watching the sunset and pawing one another atop the big rock at the one-third point.

Behind me, I saw a couple walking up the hill, much faster than me, and I tried--I really tried--to go faster, so they wouldn't pass me by, but around the next bend, I just walked out into the snow so they could go around me.  The man zoomed on by, going so fast, you'd think there wasn't any snow (or even an incline).  But his wife stopped and looked at me.  And I knew her.  I had gone to high school with her and we'd been friends.

Strangely, she told her husband to keep on going, and she walked up the hill with me, keeping my snail's pace instead of trying to match her husband's practical sprint.  We talked, and before too long, we were at the top (where the husband was already ready to turn around and head back down).  I was pretty sweaty, having exerted myself to get up there, but this was where you could sit down:

The two of them took off, leaving me the only person left on the mountain.  Now it was dark, but I drank my water, and started down.  I was in no hurry, and the one time I tried to go fast was the one time I slipped and fell, my hand catching me by plunging through the snow, which--big shock--was cold.  Very slowly, and not-at-all sure-footedly, I made my way down the trail, all by myself, but what else is new?  I did imagine encountering a slavering wolf or a yeti on my hike down in the dark, but that would be far too entertaining for this blog.

Words Today: 914
Words In December: 7381

November Sweeps - Day 645

Daylight Savings Time ended, and hey, I got an extra hour to write or edit or blog.  Or surf the internet, right?

I felt like I had been given an extra hour (it was even more than that, since I woke up before my alarm went off), and I used it to . . . shoot, what did I do?

Oh, I did go ahead and publish "Underdecorated," that short story I was hoping to get in before Halloween (and just in time).  Big gave me multiple options as far as text on the cover art went, and this is the one I chose:

Sit-ups Today: 100
Sit-ups In November: 722

It got dark EARLY today.  I had resolved to go on my hike today, because it was in the high fifties outside, but darn, by the time I got in my car, the sun was already setting.  So, do I do the hike anyway, knowing that the second half will be in the dark?

I did.

A great man once said, “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”*  And so I went there anyway, and did what I set out to do.  Despite the chilly fall weather, I worked up a good sweat by the time I reached the summit, and was passed quite easily by two other hikers.

As I went up and up and up (it turned out to not be nearly as long a hike as I thought it was; not even two miles up, but boy, you feel it, especially early on), and it got darker and darker, I worried about the foolishness of walking around at night.  But thousands of people hike it every year and only between six and seven hundred of them do not survive.**

About halfway up the mountain, I saw the silhouette of a couple who had climbed a rock formation to look at the city lights and make out.  I think it would be extremely uncool to take a picture of them, so I did.

By the time I got to the top (I went all the way, because my body kept suggesting I turn around and go back), it was fully dark.  There was no one else up there with me, and I could hear coyotes yipping and baying not far off.  I drank some water, put on a YouTube video (there was still cell service, even up there), and started back down.

It is dark and hell is hot.

To my surprise, there were still many people climbing up that I passed while heading down the trail.

The view at the top was pretty rad, if you don't mind me using that word.

Heck, it was rad even if you do mind.

Push-ups Today: 100
Push-ups In November: 782

I was listening to a podcast with an author (I thought I’d check out at the library) as the guest, but it really, really turned me off.  The hosts were writers, and at one point, they brought out some of their earlier writing to read on the show and make fun of.  I guess I could see that being funny to some, but to me, it was just death.  The author started complaining about people who write “he said” and “she said” after lines of dialogue, and how amateurish that is.  “When you write, Betsy walked into the living room and saw Tom sitting on the couch.  ‘What are you doing here?’  You absolutely don’t need a ‘Betsy said’ there.  The reader knows.”  

Well, I could not have disagreed more vehemently.***  She may be a professional writer, something I’ll never be, but she’s certainly not an audiobook narrator.  There’s nothing worse than having no idea who is supposed to be speaking (okay, there are worse things—like when the writer forgets the name of a character—but you know what I mean), and I always prefer too many “Betsy said”s to too few.

Still, I wondered if I shouldn’t have paid close attention to the podcast, hoping to glean useful tips to becoming a better writer, rather than just turning it off in anger and disgust.  Sure, somebody could learn a lot from reading their old writing and pointing out why it doesn’t work, but not by poking fun of it in the round.  I’d much rather teach a class where you point to something that makes people laugh, or think, or feel scared or sad, and ask the students to analyze why it works.  But hey, I’m not a best-selling YA author.

After the pitiful performance of yesterday, I forced myself to go all the way through to the end of "Here With My Childhood Friend," and boy howdy, did it suck.

I wrote the story as a tribute to my dead uncle, and I can guarantee you that if he were here right now, and read the story, he would say, "I died for THAT??"

But you know what, I wrote it for him, the feeling was heartfelt, and eff it, I'm running it on my podcast.  Some people say "It's the thought that counts" and some people say "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions," and one of those two groups is made up of assholes.  Guess which one I'm going to side with.

Words Today: 290
Words In November: 5879

*I’m not really sure who should get credit for this in BACK TO THE FUTURE.  Marty says it at the beginning of the movie, quoting Doc Brown, and then says it to his father in 1955, who says it to his kids in 1985.  I boy never loved a dog the way I loved BACK TO THE FUTURE.

**Okay, that was a lie.  But still. 

***I think there’s just as much chance of the reader thinking it’s Tom asking the question as Betsy.  If two little words can ensure that nobody feels that confusion, why not include them?

August Sweeps - Day 569

I really tried to be productive last night, getting my exercise and work done before watching John Oliver.  But I hadn't written a single word the whole day, and decided to force myself to sit down and record all of what remained of "Last Friday In December," the D&B story I've been dragging my feet on for a month now.

I had been looking forward to the end of that story, because it included the bit that I was most proud of writing last year, and I couldn't wait to get to it.

Unfortunately, when I reached that part . . . it wasn't as good as I remembered it.  

Also, there were only four thousand words left to record, and an hour of space on my recorder, and I didn't get even close to the end before it ran out.  But I was dedicated, so I turned off the microphone, deleted two recordings (Bram Stoker and Algernon Blackwood), and went back to it.  I was really bummed when I reached "the end," because it didn't have the impact I'd wanted it to*, and rewrote the last line.  Twice.

I may not be as good a writer as I thought I was.  Or I'm just overthinking this.

Sit-ups Today: 111
Push-ups Today: 211

I hadn't done a hike this month, so I made sure to get to it today, asking my nephews if they'd like to go with me to the waterfall up the canyon (and if they said no, I'd just do the regular hike on the mountain here in town).  Two of the three said they would, including the four year old, which I found strange.

We drove up the canyon, and I missed the turn-off to where you get to the falls (guess it had been too long since I was there), and it was a pain to turn around and get back there.  Even so, they have two parking lots just south of the falls, and people jam their cars in the spots, then just line them up wherever else they can fit them when those spots are filled.

We walked up the path, and my nephew (the four year old) started to complain about it being too far to walk, and wanting to be carried, but once we got to the falls, all his energy came back, and then some.  The water level was lower than I've ever seen it before (down below, anyway, and the river it empties into), but the waterfall was still going strong.  And it occurred to me: I have no idea where all this water is coming from.  It's easy to say that it's melted snow, early in the spring and summer, but there's no more melted snow now.  Is it coming from underground?  If so, why would it emerge at the top of a mountain?

Anyway, we admired the falls--along with about a hundred other people--then went to the trail to reach the top of it.  I remembered having no difficulty getting up there the last time, but man, it was super steep and treacherous, leading my ten year old nephew to declare that he wasn't going up any further.  And leading me to think, "Wait, Mexican families bring their babies up here?"

Then I remembered that there was a long/easy trail and a short/difficult trail, both of them marked as such.  So, we hiked back down, and started again, this time choosing the easy one.

And it was easy.  The four year old had no difficulty with it, in fact, I had to tell him to slow down and stay with us, because it was too easy to imagine him walking right off a cliff without even noticing it.

We got to the top, and it was spectacular, as usual, and both nephews wanted to go INTO the water, rather than just look at it, as I've always done, so we did.  We went across the fall and higher than I'd ever gone before, but I vaguely remembered it being harder to get down than to get up when you're hiking, so I declared it was time to turn around and head back.

That was a tiny bit more difficult, but not overly so.  Who knew?

Push-ups Today: 211
Push-ups In August: 2940

Gosh, I need to end this story.  I just sat down and wrote for two hours here in the library, and it's a scene that, if this were a screenplay, I'd cut out in the second draft.  And it's the most I've written all month.**

Words Today: 1763
Words In August: 16,246

*This story leads into the novel-length "Only Have Eyes For You," so I was thinking it would be a good last story to include in the first "Dead & Breakfast" collection.  But it might be better to swap its spot with "Meet the New Clerk," because it ends on a better note.  

**One of my friends on Facebook has started reporting his daily writing achievements, and today, he had over eight thousand words.  EIGHT THOUSAND.  You're damned right I unfriended him.