Our anniversary trip was a nice little trip, but the real highlight of Alex's year was his 58 mile backpacking trip with the boys! He had to plan quite a bit ahead of time to get reservations for camping spots in Yosemite, so he had been looking forward to this trip for a while. Alex, Nathan, and Jared left really early in the morning on Monday, August 2nd (I think they left around 3:00am). I took a few pictures of them the night before, because I wasn't getting up that early to see them off. He took Nathan, Jared, and two of their friends for the first part of the trip (M-Th). One of Alex's friends left on Thursday evening with Owen and 3 other boys to meet up with them for Friday and Saturday's part of the trek. Another friend drove there to help with getting them back to their cars for the way home. There were a lot of little things to coordinate. They needed bear containers to pack their food in (a week's worth of food), had to pack everything out that they brought it, and they needed to filter water along the way too. So they needed to know where they were going to get water. Alex had their route all mapped out and all the details worked out. Everything worked out pretty well, with probably the biggest challenge happening about 2 miles in on the first day. The soles of Jared's boots broke off, so luckily Alex had some electrical tape that Jared used until Friday to hold his boots together. Owen brought a second pair with him when he came. They look pretty funny in the pictures with the bandanas hanging out of their hats, but at least they didn't get burned! They didn't come across any bears either. I think hanging out at night was a pretty fun part for the boys, but they did make it through all the walking during the day.
They didn't get back until about 11:30pm on Saturday - stinky, dirty, and exhausted. I think it was a long, tiring week, but a memorable one and they felt a sense of accomplishment. Alex loved it and is already planning next year's trip.
(Alex did think of me at least once during the week - he sent me a picture of the flowers since he knows I love wildflowers! 😊)
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