Vacation

Let me tell you a tale of men and mice, of victory and defeat, of rain and thirst...let me tell you a tale of my vacation...

Last week was my first vacation since I entered the real world (dang it) last May, my first loooong overdue vacation. The majority of it was spent doing a whole lot of nothing, but the story does not end there.

We (Dad and I) took a little trip to a place called Mt. Massive, Colorado; and there the story begins. To summarize, here are some travel tips for those readers who think they want to go climb a big mountain:

1. Don't use a tent manufactured circa 1975. It is pretty much guaranteed to not be waterproof.
2. Don't try to pitch said tent in the pouring rain, especially when the rain will stop in thirty minutes.
3. Do take enough water so that you don't run out in the middle of your trip and nearly die from dehydration.
4. Definitely do it again next year.

If you haven't figured out the highlights of the trip, I'll summarize:

We used a tent manufactured circa 1975. We pitched it during the pouring rain that stopped about a half hour later. The tent leaked and Dad woke up in a big damp spot in the middle of the night. Ironically, after all this rain, we didn't take enough water for our 9 hour hike and ran out before we got done; allow me to remind everyone that this is pretty much the stupidest thing one can do while on a hiking trip. Always bring plenty of water! Amidst all this fun stuff, we did, in fact, make it to the top of Mt Massive (14,421 grueling feet high) and it was pretty much the coolest experience ever. And by "coolest" I mean "most painful." We will definitely be doing this all over again next year.

My goal for this trip was to endure enough pain and terror (I'm scared of heights) to make me want to go back to work on Monday. Alas, I haven't reached that point, but I got close.