You could call it being there

Saturday was pretty cool.. I went on an AWESOME hike. Zach didn't come along, as usual. He "hates hiking". Just a month or something ago he loved it. Anyway.

We drove up the Saleve, the mountain we climbed with the Levins on this post. For some reason, the car ride made me tired. Maybe I was already tired. Whatever. It was pretty cold but I adjusted. After parking our green Vee- double-ya on some gravel in an already good-viewing point, we started walking down a trail. Our boots were like teeth, the ground chewing gum; sinking in to the soft mud, but sometimes hitting the gums (rocks). My mom... had a surprising amount of energy considering her apparent ear infection. She ran ahead of me and my dad while I asked him about the music he listened to when he was my age, and screamed at the trees. She wasn't mad, no, just... alive. Yeah. I had to admit, walking in this forest on a mountain with a pleasing lump of white stuff through the trees with refreshing air was... quite pleasant. Made you feel alive, really.

Heaven forbid our family have a hike without bickering. That would be too pleasant. Nah, it wasn't that bad but it gets old. I didn't join in really. Mostly just parental-type. But it worked out ok. Everyone came out alive, if not covered in mud.

It was weird at one point, though, because there was some snow up there, which ok sure it's a mountain but, then the trees had ice on them and they melted or whatever so it'd be like snowing ice. Very cool. The snow was in a little patch. Very crunchy. I took lots of pictures.

We eventually got to the "top", and had a breathless view. It seriously looked like an ocean on one side, with the clouds a peaceful jumle of white fluff, though the color was sometimes undefinable. The mountains were partially hidden, almost like huge lumbering whales. To the other side were a whole landscape of mountains. White with black, klondike bars amid the ocean. And here we stood, on a grassy bridge between utter void with wings and crunchy chocolate.

It was at times like these that you really wished you were Maximum Ride. To be enveloped in white, forget the concept of feet and float among the air you breathed.

My dad, as though he heard my thoughts, said, "Doesn't it just make you wish you could fly?" I was silent for a few moments, mouth open. Then I said, "Yeah." It was a great hike. We got hot chocolate afterward and watched the epic glimmering of Mount Blanc sink away as the sun set.