The Adirondacks: Part 4-The Summit

 "You know what would be great," asked my husband, eyeing up the rotting fruit on my kitchen counter. Perfect, I thought, another ridiculous lecture about how we'd reduce the number of fruit flies clouding our kitchen if we either (a) consumed our expensive purchases of perishables BEFORE they perished or (b) threw them away in a timely fashion.  Yawn. To get his mind off the swarm, I attempted a re-direct. "Two flies are in the kitchen," I say, "Which one is the cowboy?" "There are a LOT more than two flies in our kitchen," Brad answered, batting them away. He noticed my frown. "Okay, tell me. Which one is the cowboy?" "The one on the range," I yukked.

"You know what would be great," Brad asked again. I rolled my eyes before answering. "What?" "If you baked up a loaf of banana bread for us to enjoy when we reach the summit." He's such a positive person. Notice that he said when, not if, we reach the summit. I am NOT that positive. "We're one banana short," I explained, paving the way for my NOT having to make bread to be lugged up a mountain. "I'm sure you'll figure out something," he answered, mimicking my patented assurance to him for every time I break anything around the house.

So with a sub-par loaf of banana bread nestled in Brad's backpack along with a thousand pats of hotel butter...

FLASHBACK:  "Okay team...we're going to go Ocean's Eleven on this thing. As you pass the pats of butter, each member of our party is to palm a minimum of six pats of butter. Leave no butter behind. Do you understand?" Each member of my family nodded solemnly and then proceeded to pass the butter like I'd asked them to steal one of the holy relics. It was up to me...and I was on that butter like a raccoon on a MRE. "What happened," I yelled later. When I was reminded of the eighth commandment, I reminded them about how, just that morning, I had to wrestle a hotel millipede the size of a small kitten in their questionably clean bathroom. And how this very liberal hotel with their non-gender specific bathroom traumatized Sydney and I as a man stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us-him peeing in the urinal as we tried to fill up our hydration pack at the sink. The irony was NOT lost on me. I had no problem taking the butter. I'd do it again.

So we FINALLY made it to the summit. I fell, exhausted to the ground and gazed out at the view, soaking it in. After about ten minutes, I heard a whisper behind me."When do we tell her there's another half a mile to go to actually get to the real summit?" There was a lengthy debate regarding the pros and cons of lying to me before I finally staggered to my feet to press on.

So we FINALLY made it to the summit. "Are you sure," I asked Brad before sinking to the ground again, this time falling promptly to sleep. He tucked me into a little rocky alcove where I sat in a delirious "I've just been hit by a truck" state for about thirty minutes while he and the girls explored. When my brain was again able to function (my muscles would take DAYS to catch up), I could hear the voice of Brian the Mountain Steward welcoming visitors to the mountain and inviting questions about the local flora and fauna. Brad and the girls made their way back to me and we unpacked our one-banana short of a full loaf banana bread and slathered on the burglarized butter. Cue up the approach of Brian the Mountain Steward. Sydney shielded the butter from sight as Brian seemed to be the law in these parts. Apparently Brian the Mountain Steward's main job was to educate visitors about the plight of the endangered alpine tundra grass. He explained repeatedly how important it was to stay off the endangered alpine tundra grass. The endangered alpine tundra grass is in peril. It was then noticed that I was apparently nesting in a healthy spattering of endangered alpine tundra grass. And guess what? I WASN'T moving. "Would you like some banana bread," I sweetly asked Brian the Mountain Steward. Admiring my face, glistening in the glow of spread butter, my husband nodded fondly, "Nature suits you."