Traffic

We woke up, packed up, said goodbye to our campsite, and headed out.

Hiking out proved much more difficult than hiking in. When we came in, it was all downhill, and so we paid for our luxury on the way out. The boys raced up and out, Melanie was behind them by a half an hour, and the adults crept in last, myself among them. I ran out of water three times and rested many, but we all made it. At the trail head, we opened up the car and the ice chest to retrieve our celebratory brews.

We met up with the teenagers and went to the "Base Camp Cafe" in our sweaty, stinky, dirty, bloodied backpacking clothes. We were all starving and thirsty, just re-entering society. Many were overstimulated. All of that made the food incredibly satisfying.

We took the rest of the day easy, taking turns in the shower, and nursing our sore muscles. I gathered everyone's photos, did some quick editing and color correcting and put together a slide show, which we all watched over pizza (I got to introduce a whole new crowd to pineapple and jalapeño pizza).

We watched The Departed as we slowly went off to bed. Everyone slept better tonight than they have so far.