life should really be this simple...

This morning I went for a walk. Well, you might actually call it a hike. I walked off my mom's mountain. We're 3,500 feet high up here on the mountain. And, no, I didn't walk all the way down, but I walked 2 miles down to her mailbox and then back up.

Picture this... Walking down a rocky, dirt road that's so steep I keep slipping on the rocks in the road. I get half way down and ask myself, 'what am I doing?' I didn't bring any energy bars with me so I had to eat some peanut butter before heading out and that only lasted me maybe a half hour. So then I get down to the mailbox and look back and the rocky, dirt road looks like it's at least a 30 degree incline. I really don't think I'm exagerating. I asked my mom what she thought the grade was up her mountain and she agreed it could probaby be between 20-30 degrees steep. I didn't know how I was going to make it back up. But I didn't have a choice. There's no cell service on the mountain. In fact, you have to drive an hour away before you'll get cell service. And everyone was asleet so I didn't have a choice but to keep trekking straight up hill.

And I did. I kept saying "come on, Cara, you can do this" out loud to myself. The worst part was her driveway. I'll bet it's at least a 45 degree grade straight up. She has to have a hummer to get up it in the winter. It's impassable when there's any snow at all. My heart rate got up to 180 for the last 100 feet or so up the driveway.

What an adventure!!

You know what sucks? My heart rate monitor says that I only burned 346 calories. What's up with that??!! That walk kicked my butt! My heartrate wouldn't get above 155 the whole way!

Oh, well. I feel better that I walked. I miss walking. And I miss biking. I can't wait to get back home so I can go biking in the morning. I just found that perfect route that took me 12 miles in one hour to finishe and I burned, I think, something like 800 calories. Now that's a workout.

I don't want to leave here, though. We're having a blast.

Tuesday, we went to Green Bank radio observatory. A place where they have huge telesope dish receivers that listen to noises in space and make beautiful pictures out of the sounds. Most of the beautiful photos that you see of colorful clouds in space come from a radio telescope. (That's me and my mom in the pic with the 100 meter tall dish telescope behind us in the distance.)

Then went to Snowshoe ski resort. And of course there was no snow but we rode the ski lift down and back. I've never ridden a ski lift before. Heck, I've never skied before! It was beautiful!

Yesterday we went to the Greenbrier River Trail. What a beatiful place. This picture doesn't do it justice. We walked for about a half hour then went down to the river and walked right into the middle of it. The water is WAY down. They haven't had alot of rain lately. So we sat down on a couple of large rocks poking out of the water and just sat there. I could have stayed there all day, I kid you not.

Then, today we went to the General Lewis Inn and had lunch. What an amazing place. I cheated a little... I had an open faced crab salad sandwich that had melted mozerella cheese on top. It was yummy. I had a side of fruit and water. Was a bit of a splurge, but that's what flex points are for, right? :)

I've been staying on plan as best as I can. I'm only up one pound since weigh in. That's really not that bad because usually I'm up 3-5 pounds by mid-week after WI. So I figure I'm ahead of the game. I've been drinking A LOT of water, too. I think that really helps! Plus we've been walking EVERYWHERE! We don't go anywhere unless we walk miles to get there.

Then we ended the day at the Greenbrier Hotel. What a truly amazing experience. What history is there! I didn't take this photo because my pictures are still on the memory stick, but I took one that was JUST like this. We toured inside the hotel and took some amazing photos. What an experience!

The best part of the day came after we got back to my mom's house. We went 4-wheel-driving! Oh man! I've never done that before! I screamed with excitement the whole way! My daughter and I took turns driving. One drove while the other was on the back. We rode up to a beautiful spot on top of another mountain and stopped and watched the horses graze. I didn't get any pictures, but it was a heavenly experience! I felt so close to God up there!

Really, this is how simple life truly should be!

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