We just got back from our family vacation and the scariest thing happened. I have a wonderful husband, but he is nuts! If you don't agree with my assessment after you have read this, you are nuts too! Joe, my wonderful husband decided to take our family on an afternoon drive (promising us it was a 2 hour round trip..it turned out to be just under 7 hours) up to the mountains to see a high mountain lake that was just a "short hike" away (and alas, that also turned out to be as much of an understatement as the travel time). Usually, I am not fooled by these "minimizing" tactics of Joe's, but he had me at a disadvanage, because I had spent the last two days of our family vacation locked in the master bedroom feverishly reading Harry Potter and I got so ticked off at anyone who tried to disturb me, my daughter began calling me "He who must not be named". So, I owed it to Joe to come along and he knew it. Any how after driving our Excursion 50 miles up into the mountains, we turned off the dirt road and began to drive down a dry and rocky riverbed for 12 miles, did I mention it was rocky? Well, we finally got to the part of the trip where we hiked straight up this mountain for about 40 minutes, I don't think even mountain goats would try this incline. What muscles weren't already sore from the whiplash of the riverbed, got cramped and swollen from Joe's "short hike". But once we got there, it seemed all worth it, until, that is Leah fell off a cliff into the lake! No lie, I have had nightmares like this where I see one of my kids falling and I reach out to catch them in slow motion and I just miss. That's exactly what happened. It was awful. One minute we are catching fish in a serene mountain lake and the next my little girl is plunging to her death. (OK, so minimalizing things is not my problem) For a split second I thought I was going to have to jump in after her til I realized that the water only went up to her chest, but she was cold, and crying for me and as soon as I pulled her out of the drink, a storm blew in. We stripped off Leah's clothes, and Joe offered her his shirt, I thought we would immediatley begin our hike down, but no, Joe insists on going in even farther to another lake. ...so... he... could... FISH!....Topless! At this point I realize that the altitude has affected whatever reasoning powers Joe had left (or in medical terms he was extremely cuckoo for coco-puffs) I told him that Leah and I would start back for the car, because thankfully she had some dry clothes there. So Leah, in a shirt and 2 pairs of socks, Rach and I set off for the car. It was about 30 minutes into the hike down that I realized I had no clue where we were, and Rach and Leah realized that 10 minutes before I did. What was a really really steep climb up turned into an impossible climb down. We ran into cliffs and slippery shale rock, mind you all this while it is raining, blowing and thundering all around. Leah and Rach were troopers, they just kept moving until we got to a fairly level meadow where we could discuss our situation. Rach wanted to go one way and I wanted to go another and we knew we had to keep Leah moving because she was beginning to shiver. I told Rach that if someone would just honk the horn to our car we could know which direction to go in. It wasn't three minutes after I said that (and prayed that someone, anyone would do it,) lo and behold, someone did! And that someone was Joe, I told you he was a wonderful husband, right. Well come to find out, after catching a fish at the other lake, Joe and the boys had lost the bubble on the fishing pole, and so they decided to head down to the car. When they got there and we were no where in sight Joe, that wonderful guy decided to honk the horn to the car. And we came lickedy split and got Leah in her warm clothes and headed home. All the way back the kids raved on and on about how much fun it all was. They are nuts too.
