I Hear Her Voice, In The Morning Hour She Calls Me

I've stated my affection for the city of DC before.  City life has a constant hustle to it.  There is always so much going on and something to do.  But I wasn't raised as a city boy, and often I get to itching for an escape to nature.  What this means is that around late April of every year, I spend the better part of my workday wishing I were anywhere but the city.  I daydream of floating down a lazy river or hiking a "mountain," as they like to call their hills here.  The last two years, I've taken a nice, long Saturday floating on an inner tube down the Shenandoah river in order to sate this need for escape.

But we had a particularly brutal legislative season at work, and we got runned over in a major way by the states.  My annual trip down the Shenandoah fell short of the needed release.  This year I made a more concerted effort to get away from the city to places where I could clear my head.  I went to Puerto Rico for Memorial Day, where I hiked the rain forest, climbed (and fell off of) many waterfalls, and swam in the bioluminescent bay.  That trip will warrant its own entry soon.  Below are some pictures of a weekend camping trip I took in July.  I went with some friends to hike the Blue Ridge "mountains" and take a ride on some natural water slides.

On the way up the trail, we passed a slide that looked way too steep and possibly dangerous, and decided that a person would have to be crazy to give it a try.  For anyone that's new to literary techniques, that last bit is what we call "foreshadowing."  Anyway, we continued up the trail until we came upon a group of people enjoying this much safer, more docile slide:

It was pretty fun, in a playground kind of way.  The water was about two degrees above freezing, so I got a good nipple workout while swimming.  So there's that.  But the whole time, I couldn't shake the thought of how much more fun it would be to ride Big Slick further down the trail.  I knew that if I left the hike without giving it a try, I'd regret it all the way home.  That's the way I am.

As could be expected, when I climbed out into the stream, it looked much steeper than it had from the rocks overlooking the landing pool.  I sat perched atop the slide for a few minutes, hovering over the water, contemplating the beneficiaries on my life insurance policies.  This is a little ritual I developed in the wake of my near-death Puerto Rican waterfall experience earlier this summer.  Having determined that everything was in order in case the ride ended poorly, I yelled "I'M RICK JAMES!" and dropped into the rushing current for an exhilarating 1.8 second plunge.  Yahoo! What a ride!  This will be an annual trip, I think.  The only thing that could make it better is warmer water.  I'm not asking for much; three or four degrees would do wonders.  But all in all, a great escape.  Thanks to V-Slice and Jeanette for the pics of the weekend.