Wednesday, October 24th: Tom and I got up with Michael and Kat and left shortly after they did. We had plans to meet John, Tom’s college roomate, for a hike. It was chilly and cloudy, but nonetheless a great day to be outside and in the forest. Tom and John hiked to Gem lake while I ran. I am hoping to run Rim to Rim in the Grand Canyon and have started training for it on more difficult terrain. That night we made burritos at Michael and Kat’s and Sherah came over to hang out.
We had planned to leave on Thursday, so we cleaned out our camping gear from Hawaii and packed it all up. The whole process took longer than we were expecting, so we decided to stay an extra day, which turned into the rest of the weekend. Sherah made us delicious homemade pizza at her place that night.
We woke up to our alarm at Sherah’s on Friday, knowing that we had to move the truck before 7. Once up, we found out that Sherah had not only already moved it, but had started making us an amazing breakfast. We really enjoyed getting to drink coffee and hang out with her before she had to leave for work. We lazily lounged around her place that morning before heading out of the city to go for a hike. I had hoped to get some climbing in which entirely depended on the weather. We attempted a single climb that was completely saturated from the heavy morning rain, and while I was halfway up the route, the sky opened up. Tom and I were both getting soaked, but instead of becoming irritated, we laughed it off. With all of our drenched gear stuffed in our packs, we finished the hike. When we arrived back at Michael’s we started making dinner and did everything we could to warm up. Being in wet clothes for that long had chilled us to the bone, leaving us shivering with icy blue lips. It took a while before our bodies calmed down but the hot meal did us both good. That night, we went to a nearby bar where we played board games with a bunch of Michael’s ultimate buddies.
I spent the night at Sherah’s on Friday so that I could ride with her to her yoga class the next morning. She is an amazing instructor and I always enjoy getting to see her in her element. After yoga, we went for a 10 mile run before meeting up with the rest of the family. Tom, Michael, Kat, Sherah and I all bought tickets and went to go see: Free Solo, the documentary about Alex Honnold. It was nothing short of intense and inspiring, giving us all a lot to contemplate. Michael and Kat went to bed soon after we got home, but Tom and I stayed up to discuss our future plans. We’ve thrown out a lot of ideas regarding what our life will look like when this trip is over. Although we haven’t come to any major conclusions, it’s been good to check in with each other every so often.
Tom and I were definitely ready to get back on the road/back to climbing on Sunday, but that didn’t make the goodbyes any easier. We did what we could to procrastinate before inevitably needing to get on our way. Tom and I were both so grateful for the time spent with family and benefitted greatly from it. Giving hugs and waving goodbye felt like ripping off a bandaid; painfully necessary. We drove from Seattle to Mount Hood with rain almost the entire way. The time in the car felt melancholy but we both knew that it would subside.
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