Life With Boys: Day 1 OR The one in which we have a reality check.

Let me back up, A month or so before we were slated to leave Anita and I went on a search to have the EXACT drop off and pick up point. The Husbands wanted to KNOW! So that set us off on a 15 hour drive in the longest day ever! We ran into closed roads due to snow and trying to figure out a way around and so on. SO we drove down to Bridge of Gods and headed North trying to get to Trout Lake that way. NOPE not happening. On our way back towards home we stopped at the Trailhead on the WA. side of the bridge. I said Oh man it's all up hill from here. What a ugly place to start. Well guess where we started??? RIGHT! All up hill from here. NO joke!
We had an Odark30 meeting time in Seattle. As we were meeting Anita realized she forgot her poles. No worry we would just go get them. Since nowhere was open at 3:30AM. So an hour plus detour put us a tad late, but no worries it's just us and our time so not a problem at all. It really wasn't. We got to Oregon and had breakfast for our big send off. MAN were we full. It was delicious! We knew it was as good as it was going to get for a week. :) We would not be hungry we knew but fresh wasn't on the menu.
We drove to the drop off and started sorting and putting the finishing touches on our packs. Both of us have food issues. One of us might have had some big ones surface in the planning of the week. Not a problem. We packed what we could. Did some quick math of meals and left all that wouldn't fit in the car to come back home with Dh and Bugs. Really not a problem. It was just a moment of frustration and a little big of clarity from the get go that we might have packed to much.
Dh and Bugs left us at the Oregon side of the bridge. It was 10 am. Our packs are so big and heavy neither of us can pick up put on without help. Not cool! LOL So cinched up until you feel like puking and we are off!
The BOG is not a solid bridge. It's GRATE. OMG I thought! trekking poles in one hand and the other on the rail. HUGE wind gusts all the while walking on a see through bridge into on coming traffic. OH GOOD TIMES! Aren't we off to a grate (see what I did there) start! Once that was over I thought we are golden! Right up until we posed under the sign at the trail head. LOL It's started off a nice sloping UP! It just went more UP from there. It was green and shady though so a nice start to the day. We were both a little surprised at how long you can hear traffic. It was days before we stopped hearing trains though. I hike Up faster then Anita does. So I put her in front. She sets a nice pace. I pant really hard the first hour. It takes me a long time to get my breathing under control. Once that happens we have a good rhythm. Anita decided I did it so she got the spider webs first. Well that too. LOL We passed lots of day hikers or hikers heading back after the weekend. We missed a sign post at a crossing but that only lasted about 100 feet when we decided that wasn't right. We went back and TADA there was the sign. I used the app I have a LOT for just that. It was an amazing help. Anita has strengths in my weaknesses and visa versa. We got to Gillett lake and I miss stepped and almost went ass over teacup down a cliff. Scared us both! I hurt and my knees were knocking so I had to sit for a bit and gather myself. Then we pulled my pack to an uphill spot and got it all back on and situated and off we went. We wanted to have lunch at the lake but neither of us wanted to hike down to it. So we opted to keep walking a bit. We found a lovely spot by a feeder creek and stopped and soaked our hot feet and got our water refilled and had lunch. It was lovely. The afternoon before us.... so off we went. We didn't want to stop in the dark so we were looking at the app and map and had a goal. Table mountain. Oh what we wish we would have known. The last 2 hours were straight up and brutal. We passed a few day hikers then nothing. We got to the Table mountain trail head and it intersects with the PCT. We set our packs down and we were done! Right in the middle of the trail. We were just fine with it. Walk around folks. LOL I think that was the longest 11.88 miles in my life. We had to organize and set up in the dusk. We didn't like it and will try not to do that again. We were so proud of ourselves! Day 1 in the book! We had dinner. Not to shabby! We did decide that a bar and a snack pack were not enough lunch and tomorrow we will have to do better mid day. We figured out how to bear bag our food and get it in the tree. We know it's not high enough but it's in the tree and away from the tent. We were exhausted! Off to bed. Bring on the raccoons. Those things are Chatty Cathy's! We were so tired We didn't care for long. We slept! about 2 hour intervals but sleep! It was awesome!