day 5

O ridge walks! Without packs, kids can motor. We made 7.5 miles in 3.5 hours and came out on the other side in high spirits and had a snowball fight. Hot, clear, occasionally breezy. Great vistas. Olympus opened his heart to us today, a rare glimpse into that remotest part of America. On one side mountain and tree, rock and valley, and on the other, views out to the sea beyond. Ediz hook, Mt Constitution, a hundred thousand tiny lives under our feet. We drove back and down, ate ice cream and returned to our campsite for a rest and a counselor talk. Mac n Cheese on Blue Mountain with an unbeatable sunset. I am thankful for this trip. For the beauty and they company and they testing of my endurance. We will make tomorrow work. It is always a little tense in the car on the last day, a combination of exhaustion and confined space and a longing for camp. My child has a nosebleed! Conrad is on it. Hoorah. They don't hate my music either, which is stunning. My feet hurt. I kept thinking of poetical things to write but I cannot remember them now. There was a moment while I hiked though a sunny forest today when we came to an opening in the trees, and the warm air rising brought me the smell of fresh baked pie in the middle of here. Spices and berry and the butter flour brown of the crust coming from nothing more than rock and dirt, bark and flower blooms falling away on the hillside below.