Fancy Free

Haley got an invitation to spend the night at a friend's house, so I had a night to myself. I dropped her off a bit before 3, and when I pulled away from the friend's house, I noticed a sign showing that the road continued to Stout Oak Grove. I've been meaning to go hiking there for years, so even though it was threatening rain I turned away from home and headed up the hill. The asphalt petered out, and the road became 1 1/2 lanes of dirt and gravel.

In French, the word for pothole is "nid de poule" or "chicken's nest". I now need to look up the word for ostrich in order to be able to translate the magnitude of these potholes. Wow, they weren't kidding when the sign said "rough road".

It was only 6 miles to Stout Oak Grove, but it took me more than 20 minutes. Maybe even half an hour -- I didn't start looking at the clock until I thought, gee, I've been driving for a *long* time! It was worth the drive, however :) The signs described Stout Oak Grove as the heart of the local state forestland, and it was very pretty. In the summer, there's a bridge across the river from the Jedadiah Smith campground and campers can cross the river to hike. We might spend a couple nights there this summer for the hiking :)

The nice thing about hiking by yourself is the quiet. You get to focus on the sounds of nature, and if you're really desperate for conversation, you can always talk to yourself :) Plus you get to hike as fast (or as slowly) as you like, and nobody announces that they have to go pee *right now*! Yeah, can you tell I've done most of my hiking lately with a kid? I really had a fun time pretending that I was a feckless college student, and not a responsible adult.

Luckily I was almost back to the parking lot when it began to rain. The signs indicated that it would be shorter to keep going to 199 rather than retracing my path. Not only was it shorter, but the road was in better condition in that direction too :) I hit WalMart and CostCo on my way back home, and then topped off my irresponsible behavior by eating ramen and cheetoes for dinner. (I hope Haley doesn't read this post!)