Not my best effort. About ten steps into the planned “We’re doing all the trails north of the river!” hike, I knew I didn’t have it in me after all.

I tried everything I knew to try. I drank more water, I ate my trail mix, I rested, I slowed my pace. I even tried to pep-talk myself out of it. “Come on, Emily. On this day 21 years ago, you gave birth to your first baby after 36 hours of labor. Now that was an endurance test. This is nothing. Wimp.”
Nope. Butt dragged the entire time. I’m blaming the fact that we haven’t hiked in Texas sun and heat like this (86 degrees today, and not a cloud in the sky) for several months, and haven’t hiked at all in weeks.
But I got pictures of a bird carcass and a cute little frog, and it turns out that if you hike for an hour, you get to a part of the river where there are no other humans. Worth it.




