West Virginia. Mountain Momma.

Take me home, country roads.


A few days ago, Hunter text me at work asking if I had work-out clothes with me, and after replying yes - I did he said "Great.  I'll pick you up after work and we can go for a trail run."  Picks me up at 5:01pm, tosses a book of Colorado trails on my lap and says "Pick a place."

I love this guy.

We ended up going to White Ranch somewhere in Jefferson Country and it was jaw dropping stunning!  Rollings hills and mountains for MILES.  Green grass, wild flowers growing, piercing blue sky.  It was perfect.  Somewhere in our 2.4 mile run we both came to the conclusion that we needed to go camping, and STAT.

I remember when I went to MT to move Hunter back to CO and moving his things into the trailer, there were certainly more boxes marked "Camping" and really anything having to do with biking/skiing/camping/hiking than there were pieces of furniture.

I knew right then and there this guy was a keeper.

Hunter worked Thursday night and is off until Sunday, so we had decided that we would go somewhere quick and close Friday after I got off work as we had to be back in Denver Saturday to have dinner with my aunt and uncle.  Well, as my favorite nurse was sleeping Friday afternoon, I ventured out with some friends and walked to pick up lunch (Food truck Friday hells yeah!) and I didn't get more than 10 steps out of my office before my hair was standing straight up, my scarf AND shirt were being manhandled by the wind.  The first thought I had was

"Shit."

How the #$&^ would we camp in this?!  I hadn't dealt with winds like that since living in North Dakota it seemed like.  They were crazy!  It even blew away most of Phil, Megan and I's lunch when we were trying to enjoy it on the 16th Street Mall...even took away my FORK when I wasn't but halfway through my lunch.

Before the fork met it's fate; The 16th St Mall gutter.

Don't worry.  I improvised and ate with the lid of the dipping sauce I got for my lumpia.  All klass, this girl.

Anyway.  I was really worried about camping because the both of us were SO sosososososososo excited to go. After Hunter woke up Friday afternoon, we started talking about it and he said the looked up the winds in Denver that day were 45mph, and he looked at the forecast where we were planning on camping, and it predicted 55-65mph winds.  I could have cried I was so disappointed.  After thinking about it for a while, we decided to man up and go anyway - no crazy winds can stop these two mountain hippies at heart.

I managed to get of around 4p Friday, he picks me up after spending some time at REI and surprised me with a kite!  This is how I know I surround myself with people who get me because my Mary surprised me with a Barbie Kite pretty much exactly a year ago and the day we took that thing out was bar none one of the most fun and fulfilling things I'd done in a while.

Our mindset was if you can't beat them...join them.

So we set off with our map in tow.  (Yes, an actual real map.  We navigated our way there, through, around and back ALL off a paper map!  No electronic mappings for these two old school hellians.)  As we were getting closer to your location we commented on the wind, but I think we were both trying to ignore it.  Plus, we both had to pee so damn bad that wind wasn't exactly the first thing on our minds.

We find our campground in Pike National Forest, drive around a bit before finding out campsite.  Get out to walk around and a few seconds after getting out of the car it dawned on us.

It was completely still outside!!!!!

Probably one of THE most beautiful, calm and serene nights that I have experienced in quite some time.  We found a spot for our tent, cracked a few beers, blasted country music from Hunt's truck and we channel our best inner mountain hippie and just relaxed.  We ate.  We drank.  We danced under the stars.  We walked.  We talked.  We sat in complete silence.  We just enjoyed each other, and enjoyed the night.

Throughout the evening we would laugh every now and again thinking at what we would have been missing had we decided against going, and that thought is so so sad to me.

I am such a firm believer that stepping away from your zone every now and again is so good for you soul.  Even if you escape somewhere that is still in your town, I always feel SO recharged and just relaxeddddd after getting back.

I took a ton (and a ton and a ton) of pix with Hunter's camera right when we got there, but no more than an hour or two in the batteries died.  Sad Beth.  Once we upload them to the computer, I can't wait to share a few of them with you guys!

What do you do to recharge your batteries?  I'd love to hear new tricks and tips.

Now I've gottsta get ready for dinner tonight - happy weekending, friends!

Hakuna Matata!

Oh - and as for my few friend The Kite, it got a slight test run.  I tried, tried and tried again to get it up in the sky when we first got there but alas...no luck.  We'd have it set out with some of the line ready to go for whenever a gust of wind would come up.  We'd be sitting there enjoying our dinner, hear the wind, both drop our forks/food etc and run over to the kite to try and get that thing going.  I will admit to being a little too aggressive/excited with it because all I can remember is Hunter yelling "SLOW DOWN!!!  YOU HAVE TO SLOW DOWN!" hhahaha.  Finally, as he was getting the tent set up, I would just run around with the kite behind me and I said to him "The best part is that when I'm running with it, I can't tell if it's up in the sky or not - so I can believe it is!" He replies "Babe.  It's about an inch off the ground."  He did have the idea to let me sit in the back of his truck with the kite while he drove it to see if that worked or not....but I think we'll just have to wait for the next windy day in Denver.  And I'm okay with that.  : >