Adventures in Hiking

Last week, my roommate and I ended up on a double date. Sort of. Not really. It only seemed that way in numbers and not in relationships. A couple of weeks ago, a few of us "newbies" in our student ward talked about going on a hike. The ultimate conclusion: we should go on one. And the conclusion stayed there until the middle of last week, when one of the guy newbies called my roommate to see if we were still game.

That was how we got invited to go on a night hike for last Saturday. Several other people were supposed to go with us. They bailed, and that how is my roommate and I ended up on a night hike with two guy roommates--and, in the course of things, had some interesting conversations. I shall refer to one as Stodgy Roommate, because that's the only word I can think of to properly describe him--he seems wounds just a little too tight. The other one I shall call Hilarious Random and Fun Roommate (hereafter abbreviated to HRAFR), because he was.

Anyway, starting at a hike at 9:00 PM on a Saturday with two wussy flashlights leads to adventure: I can't see many tree roots in the light, but in the dark . . . I'm hopeless. We ended up walking in pairs, because each guy had a flashlight. I ended up with Stodgy and his flashlight, while my roommate ended up with HRAFR.

The conversation wove this way and that, and when Stodgy found out I enjoyed literature, I was-er-treated to one of the most lengthy analyses of the Wheel of Time series I've ever heard. This progressed into a lengthy analyses of Lord of the Rings, citing all of the Christian overtones that appeared in the works despite Tolkien's statement he didn't purposefully include obviously Christian elements.

My roommate walked behind us, and she and HRAFR were laughing. I envied them. The conversation segued when Stodgy walked too far ahead of me and I had to pause for the other two. Stodgy, looking back, said, "Sorry. I guess it helps when you can see." It earned a fit of giggles from my roommate when I shrugged and said, "I'm normally used to it, but the dark doesn't help in situations like this."

As we continued hiking, Stodgy and I somehow managed to get ahead of HRAFR and my roomie, and I paused to ask if we didn't want them to catch up. (All of the truly entertaining stories were being traded between the four of us--how Stodgy fell flat on his face in a humiliating fashion in front of the first girl he ever dated, how HRAFR broke his arm snowboarding, how my roomie had never broken anything but had been embarrassed--she promised!--and how I've broken the same arm three separate times in a variety of dumb ways). Stodgy sagely shook his head no and said we were "giving them an opportunity."

Unfortunately, they began catching up to us quickly then because otherwise I would have asked if his roommate would have LIKED an opportunity . . . especially since she's smitten with HRAFR because, well, he actually has a personality.

My favorite part of the evening, though, by far was when Stodgy drifted away to a different outcropping of rocks once we reached the summit to be by himself. HRAFR, my roomie, and I spent twenty minutes tracing new constellations. In the form of Disney characters. And rearranging the cosmological workings of the universe . . .

Also, I found it hilarious this week when my co-worker noticed an excesses of bruises on my legs and asked if the boys had, um, hiked nicely? The boys were nice to me--the rocks, not so much.