Weekend Lookback

Random thoughts from the past weekend, which would have some pictures of our various adventures had I not once again forgotten to put a media card into my camera:

1. Football is back, and in full force.

OState wins over a patsy, but doesn't look very good doing it. Watching Ohio St./Texas after OState/Arkansas St made was like going from a high school game to a NFL game. A win is a win though, and those can be few and far between during football season for an OState fan at times.

Regardless of how many years removed I am from living under the crimson regime in Oklahoma, I still despise OU. All things Gooners envoke ire for me. Even ex-Gooners, such as Mike Stoops are on my hate list. It was fun watching Les Miles, OState's ex-coach, destroy a Stoops brother, regardless which one it was. It is very refreshing to not have to live in Gooner Nation though, I can avoid them with little trouble here on the Front Range.

2. Hiking with 30lb backpacks isn't easy.

Jill & I had to alter our weekend overnight camping plans due to weather & a stomach bug that got the best of me on Saturday, but we headed out for a long hike and some gear testing today. Jill started with way too much weight, and given the very steep first couple miles wasn't feeling too good as we moved towards the meadow (that we had never previously reached).

I kept asking her to take some weight, trying to explain to her that I wasn't struggling with my pack weight and that we should take some weight from her pack and put it in mine. This routine kept up for a couple of miles until Jill calmly looked at me and said:

"If you tell me how great you are one more time, I'm going to stab you with my hiking pole."

I don't think she was kidding.

I quickly learned how to keep my comments to myself. At the top of the climb she stopped, gave me a bit of a glare and said:

"You want some more weight? I'll give you some weight."

Luckily, after we moved some weight from her pack to mine, I shut my mouth and we continued on and things improved. We stopped and cooked some lunch with our new stove (which is simply incredible), and after some food and a needed rest everything got better. We laughed about our altercation on the way down.

3. Backpacking means improvising

We got to our lunch spot today and realized with all the things we had stuffed into our packs, we had forgotten any forks/spoons/utensils. Oops. Lets see what we can find...We managed to find a wooden tongue depressor for Jill to use, and I made do with a paper tag that I use to scrape food and shovel it into my mouth. The freeze-dried camping food was surprisingly really good, and quite filling for the two of us strangely enough.

I wanted to fashion a fork out of three sticks and some zip ties to release my inner Macgyver, but a rain storm that blew in as we started to cook lunch made me rethink that whole idea. Maybe next time.