“At this rate I bet we’ll pass close to 2000 people before we get back to the car.” I didn’t know how big two thousands were, but now I know 2000 is how many people fit into 5 and a half miles if you line them all up one behind the other.
Tolerance
Vacation expiration
Before long we left the river and started climbing the day’s mountain, and the blades of jagged, waxy rocks pushed the trees even further apart. There was a rumbling up ahead that sounded like a motorboat. “Do you hear something?” Mom asked. “I think someone’s mowing the lawn,” I explained, not because it was true but because it’s rude to not know the answer to a question.
Poison oak, boy stuff, and ding dong The Witch is dead
After a few minutes, Mom checked the mapp. "You idiot! You're on the wrong trail!" The Witch told her. "The trail was back that way!"
A puzzling mystery
I smelled some delicious potato chips hiking up the trail ahead of me. Potato chips sounded like a perfect breakfast. But when I found the potato chips, they were in the paw of a giant turtle-person. “Drop those potato chips and no one gets yelled at!” I barked.
Fascinator
And with that she started boot scooting down the trail. Then, something changed and instead of scooting one buttstep at a time Mom was sliding smoothly.
“This rock that’s wedged in my butt crack… “It’s sliding quite nicely on this layer of snow on these rocks.”
"I always wondered what that slot in human butts was for!"
What to do about scary things
When we got to the top, Mom took out my most flamboyant hats for lots of pictures. If you don't the word "flamboyant," it's what you get when you put together the word "boy" for manly, and "flame" for hott and it means "bringing sexy back." I stood flamboyantly on top of the mountain, wearing my sparkly unicorn hat and my exuberant feather head dress.
Rocky and raccoons
When we got back to the bottle with the beak that snogged the foul-smelling snot, I saw a family of raccoons fiddling with the trash dumpster. They weren't actually raccoons, they were two people and a dog, but I'd never seen people trying to unlock a dumpster before, so I figured that they must be raccoons in some very clever costumes.
Turnt at Albuquerque
she kept staring up toward where the sunrise should have been. Instead of a sunrise, there was a giant mountain covered in an armor of thorny rock spikes. Puffy clouds were stuck in the spikes like trash stuck a fence along the freeway, and those clouds were lit up from underneath by the missing sunrise. The whole thing worked like a trap to pull on Mom's eyes like a giant billboard that said CLIMB ME.
Not rock climbing
Even though it was very easy to follow, Mom tripped and swore almost as often as she took pictures because the big rocks above our heads kept stealing her eyeballs making the rocks under us steal her feet.
The stupidest, most dangerous thing we’ve ever done
Mom hiked on all fours, grabbing the bigger rocks with her hands until she found one that stayed in place, and then stepping her back paw as high as it would reach, and then half-pushing herself up with her back legs while she pulled herself up with her front. Some of the mountain fell down the hill behind us with each step we took.