Home Again

We got back from Wichita on Sunday afternoon and had Monday off for Memorial Day.  Needed to have at least one day off at home. We worked in the yard and I cooked some ribs on the grill.

Ended up spending the evening sifting through email and getting ready to head back into the office for Tuesday.   I made it through Tuesday and Wednesday and then off again on Thursday and Friday.   

Thursday and Friday were our days for making our hike.   Well, we did it and I had a blast.   Candy dropped us off at about 8:30 AM.  Clark and I put our packs on and headed down the road.  It was a great morning and not too hot.  It was 10 miles to the campsite we had scouted out earlier in the month. We would break at about every three miles.  Catch our breath and have a drink of water.

When we arrived at the spot we had picked out, it was taken.  Well, that sucks, so we kept on walking and found another spot that would work for us.   We started setting up camp, got our hammocks hung, wood gathered and had a bite to eat.  We both had beef stroganoff for dinner.  Just open the pouch and add two cups of boiling water and let set for a few minutes.  

I had a tarp that we hung up over our hammocks, but it was really made to cover one and not two.  I didn't take a tent for this trip as the plan was to sleep in the hammocks.  Well about 4 PM it starts to hail, then the hail turned to rain and it rained hard and then would let up and then rain/hail hard again.   We took everything down except for the tarp and we hung out underneath for the next couple of hours. It was still raining at about 7:30 PM and if either one of us would have had cell signal we would have called for a ride.

The rain was starting to lighten so we took down the tarp and headed out to see if we could find a little better place to set up camp.   We walked about a mile and came across a bridge.   We climbed down the embankment and made our way underneath.   We were able to hang our hammocks from a couple of support beams.  At this point, both of use were pretty tired.   We dug out our sleeping bags and got into our hammocks.

I can't say that either of us slept all the great.  Water was dripping down from the bridge, but less than being out in the rain. I woke up every other hour or so.  The sun was coming out around 6 AM and by 6:30 AM, we were back on the trail.

We had another 10 miles in front of us to make it to Victor.  We moved along at a pretty good pace and was in Victor by 11 AM.  We walked up to the only restaurant in town and had some breakfast.   We called Candy to let her know that we made it and she headed over to pick us up.  On the way home, we shared stories about the night we had.

It was a rough trip with the weather, but I would definitely do it again.  It was nice to be able to spend time with Clark, one on one and I am sure it is a trip he will remember as well.