My Consolation Prize: "Poto Con Dingo"

Potowatami Trail, 17.5 miles

I'm now convinced that my dog will follow me anywhere. Today Buster did the entire 17.5-mile loop of the Potowatami Trail with me, and he still had a little spunk to spare.

Since Cindy and Monika and I had arrived home two days early from the AT, I realized Thursday night that I had an entire Friday stretching before me like a blank slate. Any mom knows that this kind of thing is about as rare as a Hale-Bopp sighting, so I decided to take advantage of it. Instead of plowing through the pile of mail, or cleaning the house, or sifting through the inbox in my Yahoo account, I put the dingo in the car and we drove out to Waterloo State Recreation Area for a good long hike.

After all, you can take the girl away from the trail, but you can't take the trail away from the girl.

Since my body was already accustomed to some abuse from three days on the AT, this was the easiest Poto hike I've done yet! It took just under five and a half hours, and it was delightful.

Some of the fall colors were emerging and these red leaves really caught my eye. (I can smugly say that Jay would never have been able to get that shot—but only because his colorblindness prevents him from seeing the difference between red and green!)

I'm thankful for the time and space to get out today, because I don't think I'll have another opportunity to hike the whole Potowatami again before the snow flies.

I'm also thankful for the way it grounded me. Time in the woods is time to think and pray, and the end result is that I'm feeling better and better about our decision to stop the AT hike early. It was the right thing to do.

It is good to be home. It is good to be with my amazing husband who supports me unabashedly in this harebrained idea of hiking the whole AT before I die. And it is good to be back with my sweet, sweet kids who need me and love me and assume that hiking is just something that moms feel the need to do from time to time.