My family had planned to go backpacking last weekend, and I spent the week trying to figure out just the right spot for us: the right distance, difficulty, and weather conditions. A mellow option on Commissary Ridge and up to Mount Mitchell? A strenuous hike over six of the tallest mountains on the East Coast? Or The Seven Sisters, a tough hike near Montreat? By dinner time Friday night, with the predicted weekend weather in the mountains much colder than we’d expected, we decided to cancel our plans and go backpacking at another (warmer) time. Our son is only 11 years old, and while he enjoys backpacking, we want to keep it fun for him. Being out in the elements and cold all weekend didn’t sound like fun.
After all that anticipation though, I was mentally prepared to do something epic. A cycling friend proposed an 80-miler with a big climb on Saturday – perfect! So with some sun and temps in the 50’s and 60’s, a group of us headed out toward Stone Mountain and climbed Oklahoma, a nasty 3-mile long climb with an average grade of 6% and some super steep pitches toward the top. What’s special about this though is that I haven’t had the desire to put in big miles on the bike in a few years. It felt good to want to do that, and although I haven’t put in the on-bike training I would have preferred before a ride like this, I have been doing some long hikes this year. It turns out that the long miles on foot coupled with some short hard rides were enough to be able to complete the 80 miles and feel recovered enough to ride a relaxed 45 miles the next day.
I think what helped a lot was that after over two decades of riding my bike, I have finally learned how to properly fuel up for sustained energy. Marathon training and lots of hiking helped me by learning to rely on more real food rather than “performance” food (bars, gels, and the like).
Sunday was Mother’s Day, and we celebrated with a picnic in one of our favorite spots. We went for a walk afterward and spotted beavers! We stayed for a while spying on them and watching as they silently swam down the creek and made their way over and under fallen logs. They are surprisingly big! On the way out of the woods, I noticed some interesting shapes, textures, and colors around us, and planned to come back with my sketchbook. There seemed to be lots of possibilities for abstraction.
That evening while our son was playing with his Nerf gun, he shot a dart at one of my 6-foot tall paintings in the living room. I’m happy to say the painting survived.
The next day, sketchbook and watercolors in tow, I set up a little camp chair to make some drawings. I made a few thumbnail sketches and color studies, then watched ducks darting around and geese as they strolled with their little ones.
