Hubby threw some books in our daypack and we headed for the hills yesterday. Actually, those hills are a range of mountains over 14,000 feet, many of which I’ve hiked in my younger days.

We packed up some snacks, put CD’s in the car, ( a few children’s nursery rhymes as well as our selection of Bonnie Raitt, The Magnolia soundtrack, David Gray, The Subdudes, Los Lonely Boys, - well, an eclectic mix), and got off to a late start.

In a life not so long ago but way before children, we’d get up at dawn having packed the night before, hike for six or eight hours with packs on our backs and set up a tent in the middle of the Colorado high country. We’d eat mostly snacks and hot tea, supplementing with spaghetti made late at night over a campfire or Coleman stove. I used my homemade dried tomatos and skins for the sauce – light and easy to carry.

Today, before we made it to the hike, we stopped at a street fair so K could ride a mule and slide down the ‘bouncy slide’. We ate roadside fajitas and soft ice cream before moving along, slowly through the day, to our hiking trail.

We arrived at the trail head way to late to start a real hike. Every experienced hiker knows you better be up and back from the mountain before the afternoon thunderstorms strike. Our plan was so relaxed, we didn’t even start until around 2:30.

The guidebook assured us our jogging stroller (!) would go up the side of Mount Princeton:

“ Rated EASY: More like a boulevard than a real trail. Perhaps it was built for horses riding two by two. Lots of fishermen have been known to use this route to the lake and you’ll likely see people….”

Forty minutes into our hike it started to rain. We weren’t that far up the trail, but we know to get down fast, before the lightening starts. K had been walking for a while and didn’t want to get back in the stroller. But we needed to get down, FAST.

So Daddy became the DADDY STROLLER MONSTER. Chasing Mommy and K down the hill – trying to hit our butts with the front wheel.

K laughed and giggled and ran all the way down while Daddy made silly growling sounds and we were down in fifteen minutes just in time to watch the Colorado storm hit from the safety of our car.