But once again, I get the trooper award and get ready to go hike. The hike was actually so gorgeous and totally worth the dealing with my horseback riding soreness the whole day. One of my favorite new places on Earth is Nymph Lake. It's the smallest of the three lakes we saw that day but it's exactly like it sounds. I just imagine fairies living there and it looks like it came straight out of a storybook and blossoming lily pads cover the lake like a blanket.
Only bummer on our hike is that we brought NO food, snacks...just water. I didn't think we realized how long it would take us to hike. Mostly because we stopped every five feet to take a photo because it was so beautiful, but I'll admit a "few" rest breaks too. There were all these parents carrying their kids in backpacks on the hike...I just kept imagining my Buddha belly of a baby and having him on my back for 4 miles. Ouch. So it's 2:00 when we're done and my 8:00 breakfast after the long hike was long gone.
After that, we headed to the Alpine Visitor Center to get some grub. You can drive your car up this highway that scares the death out of you. One wrong turn, swerve, or sneeze could send your car off a cliff down thousands of feet. I've never seen Justin so nervous or white-knuckled before. Thankfully it was him driving and not me! Justin kept saying, "It's just around the corner," as he hears my surround sound stomach growling. But seriously this highway was like the Never Ending Story...it took us an hour! I run out of the car like I just finished being on the reality show Survivor and look for the closest edible thing. After eating, I realized how tired I was and the impact of the horseback riding and hike had fully set in.
Justin talked me into walking up one more mountain so that we could get to the highest elevation to take our picture at the 12,005 elevation mark (over 2 miles above sea level). At this point, I'm so exhausted and I look at this little ant hill of a mountain but it might as well have been Mt. Everest. I agree but tell him we're headed straight to the hot tub when we're done. We get up the hill only to discover the sign was "just around the corner"....does anyone see a theme developing here? On the way down, we saw so many Elk just grazing. So once again, it made it all worth the pain.
We get back to the lodge and the hot tub is calling my name. The day before it had been my physical therapist for the damage done by Dale. This time I wasn't sure if I could be helped...only Icy Hot, a heating pad, and some ibuprofen could touch this pain. So we're sitting in the hot tub enjoying the mountain view and I'm starting to finally relax. It's absolutely wonderful. We found jets that hit the really sore spots on our backs and took turns sharing. So Justin says it's my turn and I have no problem taking over. I get in the spot and the breeze is blowing and I'm finally thinking, "Hey this is what we're supposed to be doing away from our kids...RELAXING!"
Not even a minute later...BANG! Suddenly, I feel this tremendous amount of weight hit the top of my head full force. It is so heavy and hits so hard that my head whips back and the back of my head hits the hard surface of the hot tub. I'm so confused wondering what just happened. Was it a tree branch? Someone doing a cannonball in the hot tub? A moose (that's how heavy it felt)!? Nope...just the hot tub lid. Now I know you're thinking I'm a total wuss but seriously this thing had to weigh 30 lbs and came flying through the air from the wind. It was leaning on the railing. It hurt sooooo bad. I haven't cried from hurting myself physcially since I was a kid. I was totally crying like a baby and Justin is frantically trying to get this hot tub lid off my head. Now I'm wondering if maybe this is Justin's plan to take me to the mountains and never bring me home again. He felt terrible though and realized his trip planning privileges just must be revoked for the next anniversary trip. And I just kept thinking how HE was the one that was just sitting there...just my luck!
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