While you are pondering over which path to take, you find yourself wrestling with the steering wheel, while spinning your tires trying to get back onto the familiar road you have traveled all your life.

144 pages    2001

$14.95

Fay's First Hike

I guess turning 50 for some of us is a natural progression into happiness and contentment, but for others it means taking a new path into the unknown, leaving behind everything that made you who you are.
&nbspWhile you are pondering over which path to take, you find yourself wrestling with the steering wheel, while spinning your tires trying to get back onto the familiar road you have traveled all your life.
You're like a leaf in the wind, fluttering here and there, disconnected and free, not knowing where you are going to land. The children have already left, or are just on the threshold and after 20 years everyone expects you to stop being a parent.
You talk too little, or too much. Words you have said in the past all of a sudden become unimportant, or horribly wrong. Overnight, you have become a transparent piece of the furniture. You feel your life is sand, slowly running through an hourglass, and your afraid that what remains of your life will feel like an hour. You wake up one morning and realize that you and your partner have really not much in common, except for one thing - the Great Outdoors!
I've always been a walker, but a couple of years ago I suggested to my husband we take up backpack hiking. He had no qualms about giving it a try, so we excitedly researched and purchased some equipment. The most important part of the body when hiking is the feet. Good hiking boots are a must. To get a real feel for this new spring adventure, we packed a lunch, brought along the camera and binoculars and hiked some flat terrain mulch-covered paths only a few miles from our home. Soon it was summer vacation and both of us were looking for something new, an adventure.
We packed our newly-bought hiking equipment, loaded our new pickup truck and struck out for a three day hiking trip in Northern Ontario! Being as green as grass, little did we know that we were heading into the most rugged trails imaginable, at the very end of the Bruce Trail, at Tobermory.
It was a cool cloudy day as we pulled into the parking lot of the motel that served as our base camp. We stepped out of the truck and got our first gulp of the cool summer breeze drifting across the lake. A couple of sailboats and a fishing trawler drifted into the harbour on the clearest blue water, I've ever seen.
This is going to be great, I thought, as I shivered and quickly turned the key. We threw our equipment on the bed and went to our window to view the lake.
Since, it was already late in the day, we decided to eat our packed lunch and take a short hike into the village, nestled around the harbour. We'd map out the trails. Tomorrow would be our first full day of hiking.
We awoke early, quickly showered and dressed and enjoyed a continental breakfast in the motel restaurant overlooking the lake. To get to the starting point of our first trail, we had to drive a few miles south and then turn east into a parking lot.
A sign indicated bears were often in the area, but my husband convinced me it was probably a warning, not reality, when I initially refused to leave the truck.
Our map marked a six-mile loop that would take us out to rocky cliffs and a panoramic view of the lake.