HAPPY NEW YEAR!
only a few days late but i've been pretty busy,
This year was the best new years eve i've had in a super long time, probably since i was kid and the whole family celebrated together with the peeled grapes and the games.
This year Chris and I hadn't made plans and so on new years eve he said why don't we go on a hike we can take the dogs and go out, and i do love hiking so i agreed. we ran a little off schedule i had to wait for a package in the mail for my mom which ended up being an awesome package, my new kindle:) but ill get back to that later. what we both thought would be a short hike in the forest maybe a mile or 2 ended up being a 9 mile hike. we didn't stretch i only brought a bottle of water mainly for the dogs because i didn't think wed go so far. we had no idea how long it was what it looked like where it was besides what color dots to look for on the trees. so after about two hours of walking and only about another two hours of good sunlight left we began to worry. thankfully we looked up what to do if you ran into a bear. we ran into 3. i was terrified. anything you ever hear about bears is them attacking people, the news, the movies, bear attack websites.. they all talk about bear attacks. i freaked i tried to remain calm. we made a lot of noise like the website had said to and they looked at us and moved on into the woods. i hadn't been so afraid. that whole situation could've ended so much differently what if we hadn't just looked up what to do we could've been mauled or what if the information we read was a joke site and it backfired. by this point i had just about given up hope. we were stuck 6 miles into the woods and no idea how much to go surrounded by bears and other wildlife no one knew where we were. i cried out of fear i couldn't help it. so i did the only sensible thing i called the police and let them know we were there we had seen bears we didn't know exactly where we were. i didn't think they'd actually do something but i figured if we turned up missing they'd know where to look. thankfully we ran into another hiker who knew exactly where we were and where to go and i couldn't have been more relieved. him and his wife who we had seen earlier taking photos had just done the same hike the day before and he walked and talked with us the whole way out. he was a really nice guy whose wife was also an oboist which i thought was kinda crazy. two oboists out on a hike on new years eve pass and say hi and never know they share the same passion. i hadn't been so relieved to see a road again. it was beautiful out of the woods just in time to see the sunset. it was glorious. i really think it was the perfect way to end the year. it was really kind of an uplifting experience. i feel so optimistic about 2011 if we could get lost in the woods make it through the bears and fear then there shouldn't be anything we cant do together. the only downside. forest=ticks. luckily i didn't get any but chris got a few and the dogs were covered.. spent the next couple of hours bathing and picking the ticks off. charlie won. must be all the hair. i put them all in separate bags and labeled who each belonged to just incase someone got sick.
we spent the latter part of New Years at my house watching back to the future with my parents. we were all sore and sleepy. we didn't stretch. didn't think it would be necessary for a short hike.



photos taken on my phone when we got back to the car.
we did it:)