He was middle-aged and had this Indiana Jones like hat and he was very very tan with a mustache and a beard. He was wearing hiking boots and a fleece sweater, and his eyes were strikingly blue. I also noticed that he was missing a finger on one of his hands. This guy seemed like he was right off the pages of a book on exploring. He could have been an extra in “3:10 to Yuma”.

Anyhoo, we got off at our stop and I never even glanced back at the stranger. Once we got on the trail, CM jumped and made a little noise. I realized that he was standing 3 feet away from a deer! We all scrambled to get our cameras out. I got one shot of him and I think CM got some video. The kids were so giddy.

We knew this was the start to a great hike. (Mind you, we didn’t know at that time that we would be out there for 4 hours.) About 10 minutes later we turned a curve and we saw the guy from the bus. He was sitting down in the forest eating something. To my horror, Widget asked him what he was eating. He said he was picking huckleberries and eating them.

Huckleberries. I don’t know about you, but I have never eaten anything that just happened to be growing along side of a trail. I didn’t know what to say when he offered Widget a handful, but I decided to throw caution to the wind. This guy looked like he’d done this before and if he said they were okay to eat, he was probably right. (I mean, I know that huckleberries are edible, but my concern was that he had misidentified the plant.)

So I totally broke Rule #1 in my “Parental Playbook” — Don’t take food from strangers! This entire experience, from the day that I listed all of our stuff for sale on Craigslist, has really changed the way I view strangers. I have met so many new and interesting people. People that I would have never met had I would have stayed in that little box of an apartment. I walked through a forest and I stopped every now and then to eat friggin wild huckleberries! Yeah, “Old KJ” would have been terrified at the idea and that makes me happy and let’s me know that all of this was worth it.

After we left Glacier Park, disaster struck. I’ll tell you about it next time.

At one point on the trail, we started thinking about turning back. We had been out there with no end in sight and the last shuttle bus left our trail area in 3 hours. CM wanted to continue on for 45 minutes and if we didn’t see a sign he thought we should turn around. At this point trail curved steeply upward and Widget decided that he wanted to turn around. I couldn’t breathe after carrying Midget for ten paces, so I wanted to turn around. I think that when we finally saw some other hikers. They told us we only had a mile and a half to go. I was happy and PO’d at the same time. I thought this thing was only a mile and a half to begin with!

When we finally reached the road we were all so excited. We had this feeling of “We did it and not only did we do it, but we did it as a family!” I don’t think even Midget will forget that day. When I was writing that post the other day I had to go through photos to find one to post. As soon as she saw the pics she said, “Mommy, I don’t want to go to the forest.” CM & I both laughed.

So, I would say at about 2 miles in Midget flat out refused to walk. CM & I took turns carrying her on our shoulders up a mountain. About 3 hours later, we got to the top of the mountain. I’m not going to lie, it was soooo beautiful, but I was so out of breath and so scared that a bear was going to eat me that I didn’t enjoy it as much.

I don’t know how long our downhill trip took. We practically ran, even Midget. When we finally broke out of the trees I was so thankful. That night I intended to blog about everything that had happened. However, when we got back to the RV, we microwaved some TV dinners and we all passed out from exhaustion. I woke up in the middle of the night in terrible pain. My legs were throbbing, it hurt if I bent them, it hurt if I stretched them out. It took everything I had to not fall as I climbed down the latter to get some Tylenol. About 45 minutes later I was sound asleep.

That day started a downhill spiral for CM and I. We were constantly on the go and we never got any rest. For me, the first thing to go was the blog. Taking care of the kids and planning a trip on the go was more than enough to fill my plate.

Luckily we made it back safely, and I have so much to tell you.