To the Hills

Inspirational song: Long Way Home from Anywhere (Bruce Robison)

It's not often that I get directly invited to go up to the cabin. The Mr makes sure that I go up at least once in the fall, to see each build season's progress. This weekend, he suggested we go up with both dogs, to bring his laundry back up, get some measurements for the ladder to the loft, and escape the heat at home. I'm understandably wiped out from the last couple weeks of business launch, but I wasn't passing up an invitation like that.

Since he fixed the 4runner, we rode up in that. It was a bit of a challenge to keep Saoirse in the back, between her wanting to ride shotgun like she does with me, and Murray getting irate when she got too close to him. Most of the time she was able to settle down and get all the sniffs, but she doesn't seem to know yet to lie down when we are on the twisty-turny mountain roads.

There was a huge accident between Nederland and Rollinsville that shut down the Peak-to-Peak highway for hours. We elected to try to find a way around, and we took some rather sporty 4-wheel drive roads. We made a few wrong choices, and had to backtrack more than once. Eventually we emerged on the other side, and stopped at a brewery for a pit stop. It was crowded, and we overheard people saying the highway was still closed. I guess we made one really right choice after all.

We pressed on and made it up to the parking spot for the cabin. It was quite an effort for me to climb the hill, even going the less steep way. I had to stop and let my heart rate go down many times on the way up. Later, when we went down, I told him it was easier on the heart, but it didn't do any favors to my sore hip. I wasn't just running on fumes by that point. I was just staggering, or rather "falling with the emergency brake on." 

For all it was tiring, it was so worth the trip. The cabin is one of the most calming, refreshing places I can think of. I got to see hummingbirds, for the first time in years. (Why won't they come to my house?) I got to stand next to a lovely fire, and make 2/3 of a s'more (no graham cracker for me). We toasted with a little locally-made whiskey. And we let the dogs enjoy just being dogs.