25 May 2011

A Walk in the Cary Woods

Inspired by Bill, fellow Hungry Intellectual member Nathan and I decided to hike to Sunday's bookclub meeting & BBQ held at a picnic shelter in Umstead Park.

According to Google walking maps, our journey would take us 2 miles through suburban Cary along Harrison Avenue, and 5.5 miles along a couple of well-maintained trails of Umstead Park. The hike, according to Google, was anticipated to take no longer than 2 and 1/2 hours.

Much like most novice hikers mentioned in A Walk in the Woods, Nathan and I were in for more of a workout than we expected.

Nathan was definitely Bill in this scenario and I was Katz, mumbling and cursing as I tried to keep up with Nathan's brisk pace. Fortunately, I chose not to toss any of our BBQ supplies out of my pack along the trail. I did however, manage to convince Nathan to switch packs with me as mine was significantly heavier with most of the food, books, notes, water, and charcoal for the grill (that we didn't use anyway).

Instead of printing the Google map and bringing it along with us, we chose instead to rely on the park's maps and trail markers. This was poor planning on our part, considering both Nathan and I are the most easily disoriented people we know.

So 4 hours and 2 extra miles later, we arrived in true 3S hiker style: Sweaty, stinky, and starving!

Thankfully enough, though we were very much late for the meeting, everyone was waiting at the picnic shelter with an amazing spread of food for our Appalachian BBQ:

And most appropriately.... Snickers bars!

18 May 2011

Our eyes are bigger than our stomachs.

I stumbled across this NPR article while taking a break from reading one of 3 books I'm currently juggling and found it rather timely. It helps put into perspective what we choose to spend our time reading, listening, or watching.

There is more media to consume than time to digest them.

A good read. Check it out here: The Sad Beautiful Fact That We Are All Going to Miss Everything by Linda Holmes