Purrrrfect Ending

It was a party of six for the final two hikes and a beautiful fall day to boot! I was joined by Joe, Cheryl, Ryan, Morgan and Morgan's friend Chase. Our first destination was to Miami University Natural Areas Hiking Trails. We hiked 3.77 miles in about an hour and 20 minutes. You would think that having six of us on a hike that one of us would have noticed the trailhead as we walked past it at the onset of the hike, but not so much! I guess being part of a small crowd, we were more interested in socializing than thinking about the trailhead. After walking about a half a mile, I looked at the Endomondo map and compared it to the map in the book and I could then tell we were going in the wrong direction. We turned around and as we walked I read the narrative in the book and I had a pretty good idea of where we went wrong. As soon as you leave the parking lot, there is a bridge and right at the bridge's end there is a set of stairs that leads down to the trail. There was a small sign, but we all missed it. Wah wah wahhh! There is always a silver lining though. Before we got to the trailhead, we saw a really cool historic log cabin and some horses. There was one particular horse who I thought looked like Mr. Ed, but Cheryl mistakenly called a donkey. He didn't seem to like that much because he kept staring at her. I think it was her high-pitched voice, but she felt it was because she insulted him. This is a really nice trail with some fun landmarks. Just after we met up with one of the biggest fallen trees I've ever seen, we came to a creek crossing made of concrete posts. We haven't had any new members to the "Fall on Your Butt Club" in a long time and I wondered if this was our big chance. I took some pictures as everyone was crossing and then I followed up from behind. As I concentrated on my footing I heard Cheryl scream and when I looked up she was on the ground laughing with everyone standing around her. Poor Cheryl! She didn't fall on her butt, she fell on her face!!! She took quite a beating and had red marks later in the day to show for it. As always she was a good sport and started making jokes about being the first member of the "Fall on Your Face Club." There was a a nice sized pond and another creek crossing with a cool footbridge made with swinging ropes. I crossed that one first and took video of everyone else crossing. Pretty funny!

As soon as we finished our hike at Miami University, we headed to Governor Bebb Preserve to complete the final hike before dark. Upon arrival to the Pelewa trailhead we were greeted by an unexpected visitor of the feline variety, a cute little tabby cat. She hung out with us while we took pictures at the trail sign and then when we started hiking she followed right along. I found this so funny and unexpected. I was thinking how I could see a dog following us, but a cat? As we kept going I expected that she would take off on her own, but she never did. She followed right along. When we returned to the trail sign, the tabby laid down in the dirt right where we had started. It was her resting place after completing her tour guide duties. Very cute! This was a nice trail, but there wasn't much to it. A good portion of it was meadow trail and as the sun started to set the sky was pretty. I was grateful that we had the four legged creature to make the hike more interesting. We hiked 1.23 miles in 27 minutes.

After hiking we all went out to dinner to celebrate. It was fun talking about all of the different happenings over the months of hiking. It's kind of a strange feeling knowing that all 60 hikes are complete. When I went to fill in my tracking sheet with the final mileage and dates, I was sad that there weren't any names of trails left on the list! What I am excited about is that I have all of these great places that I know about now to hike. Also, I can go hike when I want, wherever I want. No longer dictated by specific places from the book.

I learned so many things about hiking and about myself from this adventure. I learned a lot about navigating trails, using modern technology tools, and how to dress for different kinds of weather. Blogging about this experience taught me a lot as well. Knowing I would blog about each trail heightened my awareness of everything I saw and everything that happened during each outing. I learned that a little more dust on the furniture isn't the end of the world! Taking time for myself still allowed me to get my work done and keep up with household chores.

Depak Chopra says, "Spending time in nature will give you access to infinite creativity, freedom, and bliss." Until I spent significant time in nature this year, I couldn't truly understand this statement. I think today we often get so caught up in our daily activities that we forget to stop and take in all of the beautiful things around us. Every time I went out for a hike, I was so far away from it all that I felt a feeling of renewal.

Hiking is a great way to spend time with friends and family. This was one of the greatest gifts of the 60 hikes.  I am eternally grateful to everyone who joined me for one hike or many hikes. Having other people to share in the adventures made the experience that much more fun.

I don't see this as the end of hiking for me or the end of my blogging about hiking. I'd like to write a post about hikes from the book I would recommend. I'd also like to write future posts about new hiking trails that I tackle that are not a part of the 60 Hikes book.

Some final stats:
60 hikes down with 0 hikes left!
Completed in 10 months and 18 days 
About 196.5 miles hiked
1704 page views of this blog from 10 countries
3 four-legged hikers (2 dogs + 1 cat)
Frogs - too many to count
Mileage on my car - don't want to count
Calories burned - lots
Calories consumed - probably more than burned between trail snacks, creamy whip stops, and Quaker Steak and Lube celebratory dinner

Thanks also to all of the readers of this blog! You inspired me to keep on hiking and keep on blogging!