This weekend my old desire to run a marathon was rattled awake again. On Saturday morning from our campground, we witnessed the beginning of a triathlon. The men and women strut around the Schliersee with their buff bodies and water bottles. It made me want to run up the mountain at top speed. Only I couldn't. I had my two kids with me. But by golly, they hiked like champs, complaining only when it got so steep I had to carry my four-year-old on my back.
"What's an extra 20 kilograms?" I reasoned, panting willfully up the hill. The trail was shaded, but uneven. Luckily, we made it to our destination in time for lunch. We wolfed down the small portion of chicken drowned in cream sauce, then headed down the mountain via bodsled. Sophia laughed encouragingly as I pulled the brake around the curves.
When we got back to camp, we took the inflatable boat out on the lake for a few minutes, but our legs told us it was time to rest. We fell onto our air mattresses with a grin on our smudged faces. The next morning we broke camp, then drove to another lake atop the mountain (Sittringsee or some such -- home to Bruno the Bear that got shot after attacking several domestic animals).
"See that house?" I pointed to a dot on the mountain. The kids squinted into the sun. "That's where the ice cream is," I suggested, pulling our progeny along. We could still feel the 6 KM hike in our bones from the day before. But ice cream has a magical draw, and after an hour and one-half, we made it to the speck in the sky for a spot of food. Going back down was much more enjoyable, and the kids even found enough energy left to race Mama down (they won).
This time the prospect of sitting in their carseats listening to Grandpa J stories for an hour motivated them to keep going. Gratefully, Andreas dropped me off at a nearby parking lot where we had left his car for the weekend. Diana Krall accompanied me home.
Camping isn't as bad as I remember it, especially when you adjust yourself to the level of hygiene most fellow campers maintain.
"I think I last washed my hair on Thursday," I admited to Andreas as I pulled my hat snuggly over my wanton hair on Sunday. Peering at the car window reflection, I looked like Wayne from Wayne's World. My shower at home never felt so good!