Hiking + New Do

Friday morning I went hiking with my friend Carmen, and fellow boot-camper. We met at some mountain off 7th Street and Peoria and started off with a few stretches. She probably saw the fear in my eyes and said "don't defeat yourself before you even try." So with that we started the "hike." I use quotes because the first part of the trail was basically a CLIMB. Hiking is HARD. My shins and calves were on fire, I was so out of breath only after going maybe like 20 yards or so. The incline was steep and the terrain was... rocky.

The days leading up to Friday I had imagined us on a dirt trail with maybe a few ups and downs, maybe a rock or two to climb over. I never pictured actually almost scaling up the side of a mountain. When we got to the top of this point, we met the paved trail.... The easier one. Probably MY level trail. So I thought. We headed up the mountain on this paved trail and I thought it would be a piece of cake from there. WRONG. The only thing easier/different was that there weren't any loose rocks that I need to manuever over. It was just has steep, but on this trail I could turn around and walk backwards to take some pressure off my shins. That was nice.

I made it to the next point and said "Is this the end? Did I make it to the top?" Carmen looked at me funny and said "uh..noo"........ I replied, "well did I make it half way?" Again, "uhm... nooo not even close".

Freak.

At that point we had come to the conclusion that maybe this trail was a wee too advanced for me for my FIRST hike ever. I was about ready to die so I had her go ahead finish her mountain while I waited for her at the bottom.

I didn't give up though. I went back down to point 1, where the rock cliff met up that I had come up from. Then turned around and went back up to point 2. I then walked the paved trail further past point 1 and back up twice. Hiking is some serious shizzle.

Since I'm a photographer and want to capture every moment on film, I wanted to bring my camera with me to document my first hike. My husband talked me out of it because "uh HELLO!? what if you fall?" Good point, I seriously didn't want to ruin thousands of dollars worth of equipment to document my fat booty climbing a mountain. I used my phone instead. Watching the sunrise over the city was beautiful.

 Later that morning I decided since I'm going through all these changes in my life, I might as well make just one more. I cut my hair AGAIN. This time about 9 inches off. It's verrrry short in the back and longer in front. My main reason was I've been working out and will be working out even more and my hair just makes me hot. So off it goes. It's super cropped on my neck and wont be getting in my way anymore. I took a cheesy phone pic because I was so excited. Also, if you'll observe, I have less of a double chin than a few weeks ago. HOLLA!