adventures on Breakneck Ridge!

In an effort to make Memorial day truly memorial, Thea and I joined forces with a team of folks and hiked up Breakneck Ridge (I'm not kidding, it's really called Breakneck Ridge) :

It was AWESOME! Thea was a bit unprepared for the sheer pitch of the mountain (at one point I heard her grumbling something about "where are all the squirrels and paths and shade? All I see is rocks, rocks everywhere!") and I have to say, there were three or four passes where I thought there was no chance in hell my cute (pink) sneakers were going to get me up that rock. But they did. (Mostly thanks to Thea's fabulous new hiking technique, which involved assesing a rock, planting her butt firmly on it and then swinging her legs up to meet it. We, her devout followers, all call it the Aztechnique (to avoid having to call it the Ass Technique))

Thea taking a break:

Also in the photo are Andrea, who we absolutely fell in love with, and who, as she was leaving, got swarmed by Thea and me saying, "Can we have you? I mean, not in a creepy way or anything, but... will you be our friend?" and Hanno (the spelling of whose name I am most likely butchering, due to my sheer lack of Germanic heritage)

After three peaks, forty five gallons of sweat and a dive-bomb attack by a herd of gnats, we stopped for lunch. And luckily, it was mostly down hill from there (topographically, not metaphorically). In the shade of the forest, the boys had to stop and throw rocks at trees, while we girls had our own episode of Animal Planet, starring this multipede (no idea if it's a centi- or a millipede, but it was pretty honking big and definitely wore a lot of socks.)
Now, we were not alone on these trails. There were a variety of other hikers, and two folks who called themselves "Trail Patrol," covering up graffiti on the rocks, telling us which paths to take (and which ones not to take), and reorganizing fallen trees to encourage hikers like us to stay on the path (they also employed yelling, which I didn't really like so much, but, on the off chance I got really hurt on the trail, I'd want them to have my back, so I endured the yelling) One of the things they told us about was the snakes, down by the ruins (which were totally cool, but exploring them got vetoed so the boys could throw rocks at trees. Go figure).

So when the hike was over, and we were heading back to the car, it wasn't so surprising to see a squashed snake in the road (even if Carsten and Thea didn't really kill it, the way they like to think they did)

It was, however, surprising (on a number of levels) to see one half of the Trail Patrol weilding another snake we found (which I gave a wide, WIDE berth):

(I find the French manicure a nice touch, personally)

Did I mention the hike was exhausting?

But awesome! (And full of falling rocks, apparently)

After the hike, we headed out to this pond for a swim. Since nobody had told Thea or me to bring a swimsuit (although Thea was told to bring an extra pair of pants... and she didn't think to ask why... or tell me to bring another pair of pants...) we had to do some interesting clothes-reorganizing to enable us to both swim and not sit in wet clothes for the rest of the day. Needless to say, my ability to change clothes in the middle of a soccer field came in really handy.

I wish I had some pictures of the pond to show you. It was just GORGEOUS! Secluded, warm (well, warm in the top two feet), algae-tastic and excellent! Afterwards, we ate Mexican food, and headed to a playground to play some frisbee.

It was all fun and games until someone lost an eye. (Kind of.)

The boys had created a frisbee game that very much resembled their throw-rocks-at-the-tree game: Dodge Frisbee. The rules were a little fluid, and the objective a little unclear, and all we girls knew was that a) we sucked at it, b) the guys sucked at it, and c) it was a laugh riot. I was rocked with laughing spasms. It was excellent. Until Carsten got hit in the eye with a frisbee and couldn't really see out of it anymore.

Yikes!

Through a variety of high-tech new fangled means (mostly mobile internet research and calling a personal trainer/boxer... in the middle of the woods), we decided against taking Carsten to the hospital, and instead bundled him up with ice and a couple of t-shirts to strap the ice to his head:
And then, of course, he bought an eye patch, and, well, that was that.

All in all, a truly memorial beginning to an excellent weekend!