Aunt Muriel & the Saber Tooth Tiger

Last Updated on August 15, 2018 by Heather Hart, ACSM EP-C

If ever there was a saying in the human language that I could 100% relate to, it’s the adage “word vomit”.   I’m not sure if adage is the appropriate descriptor for a noun whose first Google search result is urbandictionary.com, but we’re going to go with it anyway.  It makes it sounds fancy.

Fancy vomit.

I prefer my sprinkles with a little ice cream on the side. Fancy ice cream.

Most days, the thoughts running through my head are so intense and incessant, they feel like they are uncontrollably spilling out of my mind faster than I can keep up with them.  Don’t get me wrong, the endless thoughts are not necessarily negative, in fact, the majority are positive thoughts…but incessant none the less.  Word vomit is the reason I enjoy writing (and enjoy talking my husbands ear off, but I digress); writing gives me an outlet for the thoughts and words flow freely.

There are times though, when the word vomit is so messy, the words are not properly strung together in coherent sentences that are fit for public consumption.    When that happens, we resort to the next best thing:  pictures.

And boy oh boy do I have a bunch of them.

Backyard paradise.

Slightly colder backyard paradise.

If there’s one thing human beings love to do, it’s taking photographs while on vacation.  Coming in at a close second is the joy of showing those photos to anyone and everyone who casually mentions “hey, how was your trip?”  Yes, since the beginning of time, people have been innocently boring their friends and family with endless pictures from their vacations.  Hell, I bet even back in the Paleolithic era, prehistoric man would invite the neighbors over for dinner and then trap them into a 2 hour presentation of cave drawings depicting Aunt Muriel posing next to a saber tooth tiger.

Definitely not a saber tooth tiger. Rather, a frog we found in a puddle at the very top of a mountain. Nature is awesome.

Also not a saber tooth tiger, but the summit of the same aforementioned mountain.

This blog post contains numerous photos from my recent vacation to Vermont. It does not, unfortunately, contain a story about Aunt Muriel and the saber tooth tiger.  You can politely grit your teeth while smiling through my virtual slide show and babbling commentary, or you jump ship now…the wonderful thing about the internet is that I will never know either way.

Brattleboro Retreat Trails, Brattleboro, VT

NewT Hampshire.

Vacation is an interesting concept.

In our society, we’ve been conditioned to associate vacation with a much needed escape from the exhausting monotony that is the 9-5 workforce grind, chauffeuring school aged children around,  housework, the PTA, or whatever other incessant, grueling responsibilities we have.    I am one of those rogue, non conformists who has decided to follow my own career path.  For now, it works.  I have no white picket fence to call my own nor a corporate ladder to climb, but damnit, I love what I do.  I genuinely, truly, feel fulfilled in my line of work and my day to day life.  Therefore, I never feel the need to escape.

Except, of course, that wanderlust is a very real ailment that I suffer from.

Staring off thoughtfully into the void while the automatic timer on your cell phone takes a picture is a super trendy thing to do right now.

Mother Nature’s requests.

New England called on a number of levels, some welcome, and some bittersweet, and we not-so-reluctantly packed up our bags to go.  Hell, we practically ran there as fast as we could.   Geoff’s family still lives in the town in Vermont where Geoff and I first built our life together, and my family lives right across the river in New Hampshire, about 30 minutes away.  It makes visits “home” very convenient.

Vermont on the left, New Hampshire on the right.

Town co-op garden.

The kids were excited to visit family, and I was excited to have a full week of telling them to “go outside and play” without having a single worry in the world as to what kind of trouble they would get into.  Truth be told, I spent 99% of my time outside as well, so it was more of a “come outside” invitation rather than a “get outside” demand.   One of my biggest disappointments as a parent is that I don’t live in an area where my kids can go outside and explore, or play for endless hours unsupervised, like I did as a kid.  So the best I can do is take them to places where they can at least get a touch of that forest freedom.

Summit views atop Mt. Wantastequet

Surry Mountain Lake and tree poses.

There was plenty of running, hiking, and enjoying the fresh Vermont and New Hampshire air. There was ice cream, vegetables from the backyard, and way too much cheese provided by the cows just down the street.  Geoff and I got our butts thoroughly kicked by trails and hills we had previously deemed “moderately” difficult.

Harris Hill Ski Jump, Brattleboro, VT

But there was even more contemplating why the hell we weren’t currently living there, and lamenting over the fact that we had to soon leave. Summer in Northern New England is absolutely magical. Warm enough to swim during the day, cool enough to wear a cozy hooded sweatshirt by the campfire at night. Everything is green and full of life.  The PEOPLE are green and full of life.  If ever there was a physical place on earth that represented the threads that hold my soul together, Vermont is that place.  This is where I belong, on so many levels.  Plus, this is where our family is. The thought of heading back to paved, flat, busy, and humid Myrtle Beach physically hurt my heart.

But the current chapter of our book takes place in Myrtle Beach.  There are valid reasons we are here that extend beyond us, beyond our wanderlust and yearning for solitude, mountains, and a state that bans billboards.   Reasons that are bigger and more important than all of the green threads of my being. I wish I knew how to put these feelings all into words, but for once, the word vomit (it sounds more disgusting each time I type it)  is failing me. In short, my heart is split between two different places, nearly a thousand miles apart, and that’s a hard situation to stomach.  But I know I’m where I need to be.  So, love the one you’re with, right?

(I’m trying. I really am.)

We’re back in South Carolina, but not before an extra long detour away from the Jersey Turnpike and down I-81 instead.  In short: we got lost.  But these are my kind of “let’s get lost” views:

The silly SEO widget on my blog says the readability of this post is shit “needs improvement” and I would tend to agree.  The first post after a short break is always the hardest.  Now that we’ve got that over with, stay tuned for your regularly scheduled running posts.   Did I mention the Barkley Fall Classic is exactly one month from today?

It is.

I’m terrified…in the best kind of way.