Big Fat Greek Family Reunion

One of the cool things about this blog is that I can go into the statistics and see how many Page Views there were of the blog by day, week, month or all time. I can also see "Traffic Sources," for example, from Facebook, by web browser, etc. I can also see Page Views by country. This is one of the most interesting to me. So far there are 1330 Page Views from the U.S., 55 from Russia, 16 from Germany, 11 from Afghanistan, 8 from the Ukraine, 4 from the United Kingdom, 3 Page Views each from Latvia and the Netherlands, 2 from India and 1 from Australia. The 11 Page Views from Afghanistan are not surprising to me because my longtime friend Sue is living there. During the winter she sent me an email explaining that she would be in the States in August and was wondering if one of the hiking locations was at General Butler State Park, and if it was, would I be willing to save the date of that hike to when she would be there for her family reunion. Sue was hoping to join in the hiking fun. I emailed her back and confirmed that indeed General Butler State Park was in the book and that I would definitely save that hike to do with her (and we hoped her husband, which sadly did not work out...long story!) So, on Saturday, August 11, at 6:00 a.m. Sue, Lorrie and I set out on a "first light" hike. We hiked 4.73 miles in two hours and forty-four minutes. The temperature was a cool 63 degrees.

It all started on Friday night. Lorrie and I picked up Sue at the Cincinnati International Airport and headed to General Butler. Sue is in the middle of observing Ramadan, so she is fasting from sunup to sundown. The first stop was to Kroger, so she could get some food for her room at the lodge. It was important stuff:  Cheezits, Diet Pepsi, bananas, more Cheezits, brownies, and Cheezit Snack Mix. I guess when you are food deprived both from Ramadan and living outside of the country, you must indulge in as much junk food as possible. Well, at least there were bananas in the bag.

Next, we headed to the lodge to get Sue checked in. It was fun to see her greeted by family who were not expecting her to show up at the reunion - sneaky little devil!  After checking in, we made our way to the cabin area so Sue could say hello and visit with more of her family members (there were over 100 in all at the reunion.) Lorrie and I milled around and introduced ourselves as the "family reunion crashers." Interestingly we found we were not the only ones crashing and we were greeted with warm welcomes - that says a lot about this family.  When the clock hit 8:30, Sue was allowed to eat and drink whatever she wanted. She was now on a quest for the campers with the best food. As she carried her box of Cheezits and found other tidbits here and there we enjoyed visiting and sitting around the fire. It was an absolutely beautiful evening for August - cool and no bugs!

In the morning, Sue was up before 5:00 a.m. getting in her last meal (brownies and who knows what else?) She woke us up at 5:30 and we were on the trail shortly after 6:00 a.m. It was pitch dark! I was using my flashlight on my phone, while she and Lorrie trailed behind. It was very cool to see first light hit and then a little later watch the sunrise. It was a great hike! The trail had some nice grade to it, so we got a good workout. We saw so many deer that I lost count. One actually was on the trail right in front of us and just stared at us as we approached. There were also a lot of spider webs and a couple of times we weren't just covered in webs, but also had spiders dangling from our bodies. Lorrie really hated that...there was some squealing involved!

We missed hiking part of the trail due to poor navigation. We tried using the map on Endomondo with the other map that we had, but it didn't really help. We should have used the compass more - note to self. It was a great hike and a wonderful way to catch up with old friends. My thanks to Sue for reading the blog and reaching out to join in this adventure!

42 hikes down and 18 to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!