THE WALK WE NEVER INTENDED TO TAKE

9/10
Last night was wild. The campground was lit up with strobe lights, and the thunder rolled in a continuous game of bowls. The lightning angled sideways, the rain pounded the camper, and then came the hail. In the morning a woman told me that a month or so ago they had hail the size of bars of soap in the town below us! Gee, maybe that would have enhanced the character of the truck even further!

    Around noon today we decided to go for a walk. Both of us had had breakfast, and we weren't yet ready for lunch. We were going to walk for about an hour or so and then come back for lunch, but we took lots of water, as the day was sunny and hot. We followed the signs to the Black Hills Overlook, ( someone had told me it was a wonderful hike ) intending to go just until we got a bit tired and hungry. Our trail started just above the campground and led us through the cool Ponderosa forest, where Bill spotted a great horned owl-- his second and my first! Yellow eyes, blinkety blink. How beautiful!

   Out of the forest we came onto meadow areas and continued to the sign leading us to the overlook. Up and up we went. Xian found a stick and teased us to play. Up and up we went-- it felt pretty good! We could see what we thought was the overlook, and it looked miles away. Bill said "Why not?" I said "You're kidding!"

But off we went until  a sign further on told us that the overlook would be a mile ahead, not the short distance we had originally thought. At this point Bill was ambivalent, while I said "Let's go- it's only a mile! You got me into this!"  ( We had gone probably two miles at that point, from our campground.) Through the meadows and into the cool forest of Ponderosa we hiked up and on, until we came to an area we thought was the overlook. No sign so marking it, but the scene below was breathtaking. Even Xian thought so!

 By now we were hiking on rock, and below us were more Ponderosas and rock formations. We had to keep reminding ourselves that we were in Nebraska, because this was more like Utah or New Mexico. Still, we had not come to the advertised overlook. On we went, coming to all sorts of places that would have made wondrous overlooks, but the trail still stretched  our endlessly. It seemed as if we had gone at least two miles ( always seems longer when you're going up) before we finally came to THE OVERLOOK, which was NOT marked. Compared to all that we had seen coming up,  THE OVERLOOK  was not impressive at all, and we so eschewed taking any photos. 

   At that point it was time to go back, The decision was made to return  a different way, the dirt road leading back down to the campground, instead of the steep hills we had come up. Made sense, no? 

   Did we have the campground map? YES! Had we looked at it? Of course NOT! What did we need the map for?? By this time it was about 3:15 PM, and we were doing OK for not having had lunch. Anyway, we pondered, how far could the campground really be-- maybe a mile or two?  So as the road snaked around and around, with no end in sight, I finally asked to see the map. From the map, it would appear that the road back to the campground was some 5-6 miles!  GREAT!! We would have been better off going back down the way we had come. At this point, our pace had slowed a bit, and we were getting tired. The wind had picked up and it was getting cooler. I envisioned us crawling back into camp after dark, worn to the bone; and I admit to having become somewhat anxious. By and by, as we were assessing a well- mown path that we had come to, across a meadow to the woods, ( A shortcut? ) what do we spy but a white Chadron truck, driven by Arnie the Angel. Bless his big heart, Arnie offered to take us back to the entrance to our camping area!! Immediately, Xian did a GIANT leap into the cab, leaving us in his dust—no dummy he-- and the four of us in the cab rode back to camp along the circuitous paved road. As we rode, we became more and more aware  of the distance we would have yet to travel; indeed, if it were not for Arnie, it would have been well after nine PM when we had "lunch".
Maybe we should look at the map before setting out the next time?!

Did they even bother to ask me?

And they certainly didn't bother to ask ME!!!

(Photo by my honey)