A New Year's Hike

In case you're still struggling with re-entry into the working/school world, maybe we can help make you laugh so you forget {at least for a while} that re-entry has arrived. New podcast today!

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Today's blog is also part of the stories we told in the podcast, so if you want to catch the story-telling version, you can check it out. But here are the pictures to accompany it.

Last week, one of my friends from church posted on her Facebook page that her family has a tradition of participating in the "First Day Hikes" through the Indiana State Park program. This intrigued me. Never heard of such a thing before! I had actually wanted to run a 5K on New Year's Day, but Ryan had to work, and I didn't want to run alone. But after reading about the hikes, I saw that some took place in the evening, so we could attend after he came home from work. So I pitched the idea to him, and he was all about it.

We chose the Owl Hike at the Mississinewa park - which was scheduled to be a mile long hike at dusk with a campfire and s'mores/coffee/hot chocolate after it was over. 

It was SO COLD on New Year's Day. No snow, but the temps were in the twenties and it was cloudy and windy, so it felt much colder than that! We bundled up to the extent that I sent the following text to my family:

So we are about to leave for our hike. I am wearing a pink long sleeved t-shirt, a purple sweatshirt, gray long johns, red and blue warm-up pants and lime green and hot pink socks. If we have an accident, none of you have to admit knowing me.

I looked like a puffalump once I added Ryan's gargantuan coat:

We drove to the park, and as soon as we drove in, look what awaited us!!!

I was SO excited. I love deer!!!!!

We found our way to the beginning of the hike and joined up with the other 25 or so people who had the same new year's plans. 

 It was cold and cloudy - but I still love a good view of the water and the bare winter trees.

They had a little fire going and everyone stood as close as they could without getting sparks blown on them from the wind:

The longer we stood and waited for the start of the hike, the colder we became - even with all the puffalumpy layers.

They told us we would go out on the trail and partway through, we would pause while they played some owl calls and we would hopefully hear some owls. Ryan and I hiked at the back of the line, which turned out to be a good thing, because we are NOT good at being quiet and every time we stopped to call the owls, he and I had the worst time paying attention. 

The owls were apparently too cold to return the calls, because we never heard them. The evening grew too dark to take pictures {that's me gasping for air that you hear} and we weren't allowed to use flash - or flashlights, for that matter - so by the end of the hike, I was pretty much hanging onto Ryan for dear life, letting him lead the way, because I couldn't see the trail at all.

{The last photo I was able to capture before full darkness fell.}

We were totally frozen by the end, because pausing so many times on the trail made us even colder. It wasn't so bad when we were moving. We decided we would definitely do such a hike again, but next time we want to pick one in the daylight {for pictures!!} and one where the focus is more on the hike itself.

Back to the car and its heated seats we went when the event ended! We didn't even eat any s'mores!