All week I’ve been on the fence about whether to go backpacking this weekend. I’ve been sick on and off since, oh, I don’t know, maybe like mid February. I have had this backpacking trip scheduled for Trail Dames since January and have been really looking forward to it. 

So here we are, Sidekick Pauli and me, in Big Meadows…where I must add that it is currently 25 degrees with the wind chill. Anyway, here we are to check it out and decide one way or another: am I going to throw caution to the wind and backpack or am I going to shrivel and stay in my bed at home, hoping that this never-ending cough goes away? 

Oh-and yes I’ve been to a doctor! We aren’t talking major illness here…it’s the last lingering vestiges of a common cold. 🙂

So as I sniffle and Sidekick Pauli sniffs her way around Big Meadows I started to notice something.   My nose is the only thing running in Big Meadows – it is the only thing with any kind of moisture in it – everything else is bone dry.

 So, in hopes that my nose stops running before Saturday, the day of the Fool’s Weekend Backpack with the Maryland Trail Dames, I am making an homage to all the dry things in Big Meadows hoping that it will rub off on me! 

By the time I got back to the car I had decided I don’t care if my nose is running! I’m not coughing. I don’t feel sick. And I did, in fact, just yesterday, walk up a mountain (not with a full backpack mind you…but shhh…) and I walked up the mountain and I only coughed twice!

 Decision made. I’m going to do this! I want to go backpacking! I need to go backpacking! This is the last weekend of my spring break!  Here goes… across the street… into the visitor center… register for our permit… and away we go! Hike On!