Hiking in the Moonlight...

Yesterday, 2 of my best friends and I hiked Giant Mountain. This is the second hike I ahve taken with these two, and, much like our Mt. Marcy hike of many years ago, it was a heck of a lot of fun. Now understand that one of the guys hikes all the time, and the other never hikes at all. And then there is me, with no legs and a whole lot more desire then talent, as it were. So off we went, starting the mountain about 3 hours later then we had planned to start. And, as per the norm of our hikes, we ended up hiking the majority of the way down in the dark. We summited about 15 minutes before sunset, and hiked the first mile mostly by moonlight.

Here's the funny part. We stopped at one point, and we were sitting there, pretty much in the dark. We had stopped at one fo the trail junctions to take a break, about two-thirds of the way down, since it was a flat area, for once. I was sitting on a long, one of my friends was lying on the ground, and my other friend was attempting to light his cigar, and was failing because the wind kept blowing. And I got this weird sense of utter fimilarity. I said, "It's so perfect that you are trying to light your cigar, it just makes this so normal." And my other friend started laughing, since apparently he was having the exact same thought. One of them said it best, as we were hiking in the dark, which was such a bad idea,"This trip is so us." And it was. These guys have been my friends since third and fifth grade. We've known each other for pretty much all of our waking lives, and there is something just awesome about that. Whether we are hanging out in someones backyard, going out to a bar, or hiking a mountain in the dark, these are my friends. I can't imagine my life without them, and I don't think I'd want to.