Freakishly Happy

During our stay in Vermont, Joni's father in law, Al, took us up to see Fort Ticonderoga, a fort was used in the frontier and several wars leading up to and including the American Revolution. Images can be seen in the Image Gallery.

As a spontaneous decision, Joni and I have decided to set a goal to climb Mount Kilimanjaro within the next couple of years. This will hopefully give us a goal to get into shape as well as spend more time outdoors.

We have decided to start climing and hiking a lot more frequently and build up to this. At first, we will do some single day hikes and work our way into two to three day camping hikes.

We have recently climbed the Haystack, near Wells, VT. We took our backpacks with us, mine with two 10 lb bags of kitty litter and a large rock and hers packed full of clothes and towels. We finished the climb in about two hours including a twenty minute break at the summit.

Pictures can be viewed in the Haystack Gallery.

Contrary to what I said on the home page, I am freakin'. Whooooooooo........ *sigh*. I have to remember to keep breathing, otherwise the impending stress makes me forget and I seize up and fall over like a fainting goat. There is some excitement mixed in, but mostly there is fear. I'm looking forward to moving, because I love moving, but all other aspects are unknown and therefore very scary.

I am hoping that the other AYF'ers (Academic Year in Freiburg) will be friendly and that we will immediately fall in to a new group of friends. You should all send me emails of encouragement :)

PS... You will have to forgive my lax spelling ability. Since learning German my English spelling has been completely lost. It's too complicated. So you will just have to deal with it. I'm sure it'll get worse and worse as I get more accustomed to German,( a language whose spelling rules actually make sense). Just read what I write phonetically and excuse me if I capitalize things in seemingly weird places.