I'm Thru Hiking: Life After the CT July 15- August 15, 2015

Vail, Colorado

From July 15^nd to August 15^th, I didn't go hiking once.
As we planned on taking much more time to do the Colorado Trail, and found ourselves still in between jobs, we couch-hopped between many of our friends’ homes who were very gracious to share their living space. We spent a lot of time with two young girls named Victoria (15) and Eleanor (8) as well as an assortment of nieces and nephews. (I have 14 nephlings, so I dare not name them all!). One day, Eleanor asked me and David if we were going to do anything fun that day. I reminded her that we had done something fun together the previous day. She responded that it was summer and we should do something fun every day. I can't say I disagree with that thinking. Summer or not, working or not, I believe that every day should be fun, and filled with finding joy with the people you are surrounded with.

Spoiling Victoria and Eleanor with froyo so they will like us

I went to Chick-fil-a so many times that I (yes, me!) actually got tired of it. I took another private lesson on Specerian Script and spent a lot of time practicing. I played a lot of Mario Kart on Nintendo Wii, and drove a lot. It felt like I drove 100 miles a day nearly every day between all of Northern Colorado. David attempted to get back on the Colorado Trail on two occasions and ended up solo backpacking 40 miles more than me. So… there was two trips to Copper Mountain to drop him off and another one to Leadville to collect him; cold, wet and very tired at 9:30pm one night. Within a week we were back up I-70 to visit some of David's family in Vail at their timeshare. In addition to driving up and down I-70, I drove up and down I-25 to Denver probably 10 times. From Fort Collins to Loveland, and out to our storage unit in Windsor perhaps 50 times. We took a trip up to Sheridan, Wyoming to work on our Dive Master training with High Mountain Divers. I threw in a trip to Elitches (basically a 6 Flags), Dave and Busters, car camping with friends, swimming at EPIC in Fort Collins, a crazy day and night playing at Fort Fun, a day at Black Hawk gambling, and two birthday parties back to back for an 8 year old and a 7 year old. Side note: My adorably sweet niece Abigail asked me if I was invited to a lot of birthday parties to which I said, “recently, yes!”. She just nodded her head like, “that makes sense” and said, “that’s because you’re a really good aunt”. I most definitely got to the play the part of aunt, both to those who actually claim me as such and to those who apparently want to. I loved every minute of it.

In all of the gluttony of meeting friends for a meal, BBQs with family, taking children out for unhealthy meals, I can honestly say that I worked out only one time. Once! In a whole month! Most days my mileage count was probably less than 5 miles total, just from normal walking here and there. How on Earth did I go from my 10-20 miles with a 40 pound pack on my back to this!? I blame my foot (and also because laziness is way too easy). I nursed my foot for way too long and lacked creativity in finding ways to work out that didn’t involve walking. I swam laps once at the beginning of the month and was amazed at how easy it was to complete a mile (about 35 out and back laps). So I swam a mile and a half, and then there was no more. I started feeling really bad, severely out of shape and as if the pounds were piling on. Fortunately for me, hanging out with kids must burn more energy than I thought and I only gained back three pounds.