Long Wet Grass, A Cardinal Sin, and a Toast

Team Roger is in Scotland! The dream trip has come to pass at last, 

and as I write this catch-up blog

Nerstrand Big Woods Hidden Falls

(catching up thanks to a few technical issues that needed sorting out now that we're overseas) we're settling into our new time zone and loving every minute.

But let me back track just a a bit to the weekend before we left the U.S. when we made our final group training hike of 8.5 miles at another of our favorite and oft-visited state parks, Nerstrand Big Woods. (As an aside, Scout and I spent many weekends family picnicking at this park as kids not knowing it would become a regular haunt as adults.) This time our blisters were healed, our socks were perfect, our stamina at its peak. It was a perfect hike--and then we were semi-thwarted. Not by injury or wildlife, or pooping out, but by grass. Specifically, calf-high, un-mowed, extremely wet grass. 

Several things happened when we hit the overgrown trails. 1) our pants got soaked up to the knees. 2) The waterproofing on our boots took a beating. 3) Everyone found out exactly how well their boots did in water. 4) Scout figured out that when your sopping boots are feathered with sopping dandelion fluff, they're very hard to clean off. 

Tall grass trail -- WET.

Finally, I, Babs, with the newest boots, was the only team member with wet socks--very very wet socks. 

After a long moment of crabbing at what seemed to be a pair of boots that were official lemons, the plan was made to commit a hiker's cardinal sin: get a new pair of boots only four days before leaving on a long-distance hike. This is normally a huge no-no because we all know it takes several hikes to break in new boots. But here's the wonderful thing about most Lowa boots--they are a bit like slippers, or at least your favorite pair of shoes, almost right out of the box. I wear a wide boot now and there isn't a single spot that pinches or rubs. So...thanks to REI's extremely understanding return policy, I got a brand new pair of Lowa Renegades and wore them for four days with zero problems. We'll see how that lasts. 

After our last hike we celebrated with Wagyu beef hamburgers at our new favorite restaurant in Faribault, MN called The Depot. And then we broke open a bottle of pink Prosecco to toast what was coming up. 

We all kept our fingers crossed the rest of the week and never once jinxed our trip by saying we were sure it would happen. The final preparations for travel were our personal little goofinesses--like getting pedicures and haircuts that involved designs and colors. Here are my Scotland-appropriate toes and hair. Note the toenails also include the Union Jack--a tribute to all of Great Britain because of our jaunt later in the trip to England.

Babs' Saltire and Union Jack and Scotland-blue hair

The superstitious behaviors apparently worked because our plane landed safely in Glasgow on June 11th. 

Coming up next:  Days 1 and 2 in Glasgow and an intro to our other two Team Lowa members--who WILL be joining us mid-trip: Jill "Nellie" Feuk and Chris "Geoph" Feuk.

 

Nellie and Geophysics