Recreation Gone Bad

I was so excited this morning to have my Handy Hubby home for the morning hours.  He agreed to hike with me, so I located a couple of geocache coordinates and told him I wanted to go to North Park.  The Red-Dot trail I’ve frequented lately has a cache along it that we have yet to look for.  It’s a multi-cache requiring approximately a 2-mile hike.  That sounded perfect given the fact that he would need to be home by lunchtime to get ready for work.

 

My walking sticks were worth their weight in gold today!  I slipped on the first hill. I almost landed on my butt; however, I caught myself with my walking stick.  Whew!  We opted to hike UP the hill on the Red-dot, as I usually do.  Well… I twisted my ankle about half way up the hill.  It was bad enough that the next few steps were extremely ouchy, and I needed to stop and regain my composure.  Keith was so concerned and supportive.  I love that about him.  I decided to walk it out, so up the hill we went. 

 

So we find the approximate spot where the first leg of the multi-cache is supposed to be.  We found a clue attached to a tree reading “You are close.  Keep looking.”  That was cute.  We didn’t find the actual cache with the coordinates though.  We gave up after scouring the area and finding nothing but a zip tie on a tree with nothing attached to it.  So much for our geocaching idea. 

 

We decided to go back down the trail towards where we parked, in search of another cache in that general direction about 3/4 of a mile.  Part way down we switched trails to the one that passes by the stone ruins I may have mentioned in another post. 

Of course Keith insisted on checking it out.  There is even a picnic table down there.  It’s at the bottom of a muddy hill, which I refused to tackle today because my ankle was still a little bit tender.  The problem was his getting back up the hill.  He had NO traction.  I watched him almost make it up, but then slide back down as if he was skiing backwards, probably THREE times!  I was laughing, but he didn’t think it was funny, especially when he wacked his ankle on a tree branch.  OUCH!  So he finally climbed up out of the pit, but at that point he was in pain.  So much for finding the other cache. 

 

We walked a little more slowly back to the car, dumbfounded about how this recreational opportunity panned out.  So we stopped at the grocery and got some good fresh fruit and vegetables and then headed for home.  We both ate lunch with our ankles elevated and iced.  How romantic…. NOT!!!

 

I want to be out and about tomorrow too.  I’m trying to think of something to enjoy in the outdoors after church.  I’m thinking hiking (if our ankles are up to it) or fishing or something like that.  I’ve been considering the possibility of canoeing again; however, I have not yet fully convinced myself of that.  It’s just a notion.  Although that would probably rest the ankles, right?  Hmmmm…