Camping at Big Creek, Idaho

Last weekend Glen and I went camping up at Big Creek. It is about a 6 hour drive from here, past Yellow Pine, over Profile Summit and down the other side. Beautiful country, other than the devastation from last summer's forest fires around Yellow Pine. We actually pitched our tent on the deck of Tom Stokes' cabin (just in case it rained!) Glen has been to Big Creek many times but I had never been there. We took a hike from Big Creek to Lick Lake on Friday. It was only three miles but the elevation changes 2,000 feet in that distance and the trail is pretty steep. Glen kept apologizing, saying he didn't remember it being so far, asking me if I wanted to stop (maybe he was wishing I would so that he could stop and save face!). (Did I mention that Glen was on a horse when he "hiked" to Lick Lake all those years ago?) Now I firmly believe that sometime over the past 15 years or so since Glen was last up there, someone stretched that into a 30 mile hike. Just around the next bend, up the next hill, down the next grade, over the rocks........it can't be much farther! Three hours after we started out, we made it to the lake. I will say that it was beautiful. Going down seemed easier at first but it was an entirely different set of muscles and, while I didn't have to stop and rest every little bit, those muscles got a workout, too. The next morning I literally couldn't walk. In fact, for two days I could barely shuffle around. Glen thought it was pretty funny and of course he was laughing WITH me and not AT me!

There were several abandoned cabins--some constructed from logs, others a little "newer" but in similar stages of deterioration. They fit into their surroundings as if they've always been there. One of the cabins had an amazing old fashioned cook stove along with some other furniture that was probably beautiful before the cabin was inhabited by chipmunks and other such critters. Can you imagine the stories some of those cabin walls could tell of days gone by?

We listened to a couple audiobooks which made the drive seem shorter, enjoyed camp cooking, didn't enjoy the outhouse experience or the hard frost we woke up to Friday morning, savored the fresh mountain air and the peace and quiet and serenity that comes with that territory. It was a great trip--refreshing, renewing and much needed. Now it is back to the real world, school, and life.

School days.......again!

Tradition at our house is a "first day of school" picture--this is last year's that Corey insisted on taking.

Classes started at Boise State again this week. After just four days, I find myself wondering if I have bit off more than I can chew! Why is it that every professor acts as if THEIR class is your ONLY class and piles on the assignments accordingly?
My day begins at 7:40 with an aerobics class (which, by the way, would be a great place for young men to meet women as the ratio is 2:40). Is it possible to flunk a fitness assessment? If so, I pretty much did just that! But there is a bright side to everything, right? From the bottom, the only direction to go is up--I will do better because I couldn't have done much worse. How pathetic I am! Here Brandis is training for a marathon and runs for literally miles and hours at a time but I can't complete a single pushup correctly, my knees give out after 10 rounds on the "beep" test, (the class star completed 141 rounds if that tells you anything!). But, as I said, I can only go up from here.

I do have other classes besides aerobics. Intermediate Algebra, English Literature, civil war to present, History, civil war to present, Biology and a to go with it, and two one-credit Healthstudies workshops that will be held three Saturdays each, one being stress management, the other positive thinking and happiness. It will be an interesting semester.

If there are any of you toying with the idea of returning to college, I highly recommend it. It is a bit intimidating at times (can I really remember any of what I am reading? can you really teach an old dog new tricks?) but it is great to be making the old brain work hard again and to be doing something for myself that I have always wanted to do. If you are thinking about going back, I say go for it!