Hiking

Nathan and I had a surprise MINI-VACATION last Saturday. The city can get really exhausting after a while with walking everywhere in the heat, not having central air conditioning and auditioning, taking class, and working 3 different jobs! Our close friends Marissa and James invited us to go see The Dark Knight Rises on Friday night, and we had a blast. They then invited us to hiking with them the next day in upstate NY. They luckily have a car and we were so excited to go!
  They picked us up early Saturday morning and we headed to our destination that was 2.5 hours away in Minnewaska, NY. We were so happy to be in a car with the windows down listening to music and talking with our friends. That alone felt like a vacation from the city. :)
    We then go to the park around noon and immediately saw the beautiful lake surrounded by trees and these gorgeous cliffs that jut out from the trees.

     We then headed on our hike which ended up being about 7 miles of hiking - SHEESH! The weather was perfect...I mean, it felt like it was October...the perfect cool chill in the air, it was such a blessing!

 
    As we hiked we would tell stories and talk about everything under the sun. There were even times when we were laughing so hard no one could walk anymore because we couldn't breathe from laughing - those are the best times!
   When got to hike along the edge of this gorgeous mountainous cliff over looking a city and trees below us, which is where we decided to eat our packed lunches.

I realllllly thought we could push this over. Guess not...

   

Lunch Location

   After lunch we were hiking up a hill when we felt the temperature drop like 15 degrees. We were all talking about how we all felt it and it felt like air conditioning, next thing we knew there was this cave that jutted down almost like a big rocky hole in the ground. It went so deep, that the cold air was pouring out of the cave and created a feeling of air conditioning. We walked close to the opening and we could see our breath and the rocks felt like ice. This was one of the coolest things I had ever experienced in person. We sat down and took a nice rest there in our natural air conditioning. :)

   We then finished our hike after a few pretty tough spots that included rock climbing...we were SO out of breath! We had never been happier than to see the gorgeous LAKE when we returned. Once we got to the lake, Nathan quickly jumped into the cold water while the rest of us just sat on the pier and dipped our sore feet into the water. Nathan is the sweetest husband in the universe because he floated right below me and massaged my feet then gave me a 'natural foot scrub' with the rocks from the lake. He is the best! I almost cried because it felt sooo good.

   After changing out of our sweaty and wet clothes and into a fresh outfit, we walked to our car and were overjoyed to sit down! (we are getting old..haha) Then we saw a FOOD TRUCK where we got fresh cold waters and raspberry-lemon italian ice's. A few minutes down the road we saw a BBQ restaurant , that was not any bigger than 2 port-a-potty's side by side. It was kind of like a BBQ truck, but it looked like a log cabin. :) You know me and BBQ. I HAD to have it , and so did everyone else.
   We ordered up and sat under our rainbow colored umbrella in the parking lot and stuffed our starving faces. We felt like this was a prize after all of our hard work!

 

  We returned home around 8pm, and settled back into the loud noises of the city. The day was so refreshing and felt like an unexpected get-a-way. Couldn't have been a better Saturday!