Louse: a small usually sluggish arthropod that lives on other animals or plants and sucks their blood or juices
I’ve been feeling very sluggish, and that I’ve been living off of Julie’s efforts and work. I feel like I’m sucking the life out of her.
Yesterday it wasn’t because of the mental issues, but the physical ones. We’ve gotten to the point of putting down flooring in the house and bought 50 sheets of tile backer board to put down.
Those sheets are 3’x5′ and weight approximately 42lbs each. We bought an entire pallet of them (50 sheets). That is a weight of just over 2100lbs. It had the trailer tires looking over taxed on the drive home. We need 75-80 sheets, but were worried about the weight.
Being the broken louse that I am, I carried exactly ZERO of those sheets up to our work area. My Wonder Woman wife carried all 50 of them, alone, from the trailer, across the lawn, up a flight of stairs and into the remodeled space of the house. That is over 1 ton of material moved by her 5 foot tall, 135 lbs frame.
And not content to stop there, she proceeded to then start laying them out on the floor.
Lousy, Yes?
Gentlemen, you would feel pretty lousy too if you couldn’t help you out in such a situation, right? I’m a big guy, broad shouldered with a fair amount of muscle on me. I get asked if I’m a bouncer (often), a bodyguard (a few times), or played professional football (really?). Yet I might was well be a 110lbs weakling for all the help I have to offer around here. And knowing that I used to be able to do that precise type of thing without feeling taxed at all… well then the mental pains really begin to set in. Watching my wife do it all in my place … well, makes me feel like a louse!
As a teenager, I recall many hikes up Timpanogos Mountain ( Timp ). Only one of these hikes occurred during the day. Many hikers like to make this hike on a full moon. We try to time things just right so we can be sitting on the summit and watch the sunrise. Having lived my whole life under the shadow of this mountain, sunrises weren’t nearly as spectacular as sunsets for me. It would often be full daylight before sunlight ever reached my yard. But then I watched my first sunrise from the top of this majestic mountain. It is quite the thing to witness.
Like I said, I made this hike a number of times as a teenager. Every year with our youth group, once with family, and a number of times with different groups of friends. One time I hiked to the top from the Aspen Grove trail, but all of the other times we took the Timpooneke trail. There were times that we stopped at the “saddle,” but most often I made it to the summit. Many people slide down the glacier from the summit but I never took that venture. We often met and were scared by the “resident moose.” Once we stopped and played around Emerald Lake. I don’t remember any “bad” trips up the mountain. We had aches and pains, but I don’t recall serious injuries. It was a fun hike which I anticipated every year.
Passing on my passion
And so I decided to try and share these memories with my children. Caitlin (15), Josh (13), and Kristie (11), each decided they wanted to try hiking Timp with me. I invited Charlee (9), but she said she doesn’t like the dark or heights so she was happy to stay at home. I invited my sister, Jenni, and she was as giddy as I was. She brought along her oldest boy, Jake.
I watched the full moon schedule, tracked the snow melt, watched the weather and waited for the right time to hike. We tried to go up in early August, but our adventure was thwarted by thunderstorms. (My dad took scouts up there once and got caught in lightening…Yeah, not something I wanted to do with my kids.) And so we set the date for Labor Day. I was so excited. My kids…not so much. They haven’t really done any hiking and didn’t know what to expect or anticipate.
Packing
I packed up apples, 2 different kinds of trail mix, 3 large Poweraides, 3 water bottles, and 2 camelbacks. We had 2 head lamps, 1 mag-light, 2 other flashlights, extra batteries, a pair of hand held radios, a first aid kit, and some random survival supplies. There were 2 backpacks with 3 poweraide/water bottles each, for the kids to trade off carrying along with one camelback. I carried the rest. (Yes, I am a mother who packs WAY too much for her brood, but I was able to heft the heaviest pack so…)
Labor Day Morning: 12:30 AM
I slept through my alarm so Jenni woke me up at 12:30 AM. It’s a good thing she was driving, I would have missed it. We stopped at Walmart for some snacks: bananas, grapes, pop tarts, jolly ranchers, and chewy sprees. (Most of which I hauled but we didn’t eat.) Then we headed up American Fork Canyon to the Timpooneke trailhead. The parking lot was nearly full when we arrived at 1:30am. (Hiking Timp is very popular) We took some pictures and were off!
Altitude Sickness or Sleepy Sickness
We hiked through the dark for about an hour at a nice slow pace. A number of groups passed us (mostly college kids), but we weren’t worried. Slow and steady wins the race, right?!?
Everything was just fine until Jake started getting sick. His stomach hurt and our breaks became more regular and lasted longer with each one. Thinking it might be dehydration, Jenni and I encouraged him to keep drinking water. It is amazing what water, and lack thereof, will do to your body. But things continued to get worse. We made it to the meadow above scout falls when Jake really started feeling poor. We had already seen 2 sets of hikers headed down. Both stated they had a sick hiker. I turned to Jake and told him, “Look! Even big college kids sometime have to turn around. We will stop if you need us to.”
Both Jenni and I were torn. We didn’t want to separate, but the looks on the faces of the kids at the thought of turning around was heartbreaking. Caitlin, Josh, and Kristie were pretty disappointed at the prospect, but they weren’t excited about the thought of leaving Jake either. Jake couldn’t fathom hiking another 3+ hours to the top, but didn’t want to be the reason we all turned around. Finally, Jenni suggested I take the older three while she and Jake tried to sleep for a bit and we would keep in touch via radio. We split up…and around 4:00 AM, Jenni radioed to let us know that they were headed back down the mountain. On the way to the parking lot, Jake threw up (that probably helped the most). By the time he got home, he was feeling great.
Going on alone
My kids were still determined to reach the saddle, but their energy level plummeted after leaving their cousin behind. Instead of joking and singing, there was silence. Breaks were still fairly regular as our altitude increased rapidly. Just a little perspective, the hike to the basin (or what we always called the meadow) is about 5 miles and rises over 3,000 ft in altitude. We made it to the meadow around 5:45 am (a little over 4 hours of hiking). We were only about 2 miles from the summit but the kids were beat. They wanted to rest for a minute. I knew if they stopped they would never go again, but I also didn’t want to make their first hike a miserable one.
I went off in the trees to use the bathroom and by the time I got back, the kids were snoring. Seriously, they huddled up together against the cold and fell asleep and started to snore. I knew we were done but I wasn’t too disappointed. They had done a really hard thing and it was pretty amazing.
This is a picture of our “camping” spot that I took when the sun came up. Below is a picture that Caitlin took when I was trying to rouse my minions in hopes of climbing higher. They weren’t too keen on the idea.
Rescue Chopper
While listening to the sonorous sounds of snoring…I heard a rescue helicopter coming near. It came up over the saddle and circled for a solid 20 minutes. I had never seen rescue people up on Timp before and hoped that they were just checking the area since it was a holiday and there were so many hikers. But that wasn’t so…
As the sun rose and the kids and I were traipsing about the meadow, the chopper came back and landed. We watched them pull out a gurney and some of their supplies. There were no hikers in the area of their landing (we knew cause we had been all over that area messing around). So they were going to have to hike to the injured party and then carry them back to the chopper. So we decided to begin our decent.
view from the basin
As I said before, the meadow is less than 2 miles from the summit but more than 1500 ft higher in elevation. Here are a couple of pictures that I took to show the kids where we were trying to reach in the dark. The first picture shows the summit (even if it is a little out of focus). For their first hike I really only expected us to get to the saddle (picture #2). Alas, after listening to rescue choppers, I was satisfied with our hike and extremely grateful for our safety.
Enjoying the scenery on the way down
One good thing about hiking in the dark is that you don’t see how far you still have to go. It is easier to get into a rhythmic routine of “just keep hiking, just keep hiking, hiking, hiking…All you have to do is HIKE…HIKE.” (Thanks Dory for the theme song) It is also cooler. As the sun hits the trail it can get unbearably hot…fast. I ache for the people just starting their accent as we reach the bottom. Along with the heat of the sun, we have the light to show us the beauties and perils we crossed in the dark. The kids looked around, amazed by the beautiful meadows, and foliage, the treacherous shale crossings, and the awesome views of the canyon below.
We even saw two moose eating just off the trail. They are hard to see in the picture but I assure you, I didn’t really want to get much closer. When they brought up their heads and looked directly at me…I froze…hoping they wouldn’t spook and charge. Thankfully they went right on grazing.
The Down Beat
The hike down was always the worst for me as a youth. And 8 kids later was no exception. One of the ligaments in my hip hurt so bad I could hardly lift my leg. My knees didn’t really appreciate all of the pounding. And Kristie complained of tired feet as we reached the parking lot.
But 5 days later as I right this post I have almost forgotten the pain and really do want to go at it again. Next time (next year) we will make it to the summit of Timp!
Nothing out of the ordinary this week, just life being life. But I’m beat!
We do have internet now at my parents place, so that’s good. We now have access to the outside world.
The kids are all in school and doing fine. We are getting into the swing of things here and are making adjustments to make things easier.
We still only have one shower for the 12 people living here. That will be a construction priority as soon as we find time to do some construction again.
After the kids left for school, Julie and I worked today on the parking situation. We got the pile of green waste picked up off of the driveway, moved the swamp cooler, pulled the tractor out into the field, moved a pile of pallets, moved 2 boats away, loaded up a trailer full of trash, and swept the entire parking area. 5 hours of work later and we can now park by the garages again! Hopefully the motorhome will be moved soon to make it even easier.
I’m toying with the idea that Julie is a futuristic cyborg with a limitless energy supply. That woman never stops and I don’t feel like I get to either. She can go forever, but I desperately need some down time! Life is exhausting!
When I was a Realtor I always considered it my primary task to remove as much stress from my clients as I possibly could. Why? Because studies showed that moving created stress near the levels of having a loved one die, or going through a divorce.
I think Julie would have happily taken either of those options yesterday. Instead, she got to move into her “In-Laws” house (cue creepy horror music).
Stressed Out
It was not nearly as hard for her to move into her parents house. It was a house she was familiar with, it was her parents instead of mine, and mostly because she knew it was a temporary home.
This time things are different. This time the house is new to her. She hasn’t lived here before, she doesn’t have a history of where things have been located in the house, she doesn’t have childhood memories there, there isn’t as much finished space, and other such reasons make this much harder emotionally for her.
And the owners of the house are new. The household ‘norms’ are different. She is trying to be more cautious about ‘stepping on toes’ since she hasn’t lived with my parents before. She’s feeling very self-conscious about changing the way things have been done before, in a house she doesn’t feel is “hers” yet. She doesn’t want to hurt feelings and has to think about more than she did while living with her parents.
And this is a permanent move. Rather than going to her parents just temporarily and knowing she’ll get out of there again, she knows this move is not. That she won’t be leaving here anytime soon. That is hard. This isn’t where we ‘want’ to be. If we had a magic wand to wave and choose where to live, it wouldn’t be here. We’re here because of circumstances; not because it is our lifelong dream to move in with my parents (Sorry Mom).
The knowledge that this is a permanent (or at least very long term) is stressful, especially for Julie. It’s not easy on me, but I feel really terribly bad for my sweetheart.
“It’s Fine”
We have a running joke where when we aren’t really happy about something we just tell each other “It’s fine! It’s fine!” with a certain emphasis that tells the other that we’re jokingly not thrilled. Julie keeps telling me that “It’s fine’ but without that emphasis.
She says it’s fine, but she is lying. I caught her crying yesterday while trying to move in. The stress of trying to organize ourselves into a house with people already living in it was winning the day. I held her and told her things would get better. That little by little it will feel more like home, and that she is welcome to make it her home.
And today is a better day. She is more carefree and happy. It’s will be a roller coaster of ups and downs, but I’m sure it will trend toward happiness.
She really will be fine. She is amazingly strong and resilient. And she’s been through worse. Afterall, she did move me into an unfinished home, in December, with no insulation, no internal plumbing, no walls, no electricity, and no flooring (concrete and plywood was all), and she considers it a great memory.
We’ll be fine and things will work out. Hopefully without the Death and Divorce involved.
But if you see Julie, and feel inclined, please pass on your encouragement and love. She might need them more than usual over the next few weeks.
And please forgive her if I’m wrong and she strangles me in my sleep. Even I would understand! 🙂
