When I was 22 I started to do some serious backpacking with Ray, Sally, David and some other friends. We would spend our free weekends driving from NYC to the White Mountains of New Hampshire to spend time in the mountains. Then, the summer before graduate school, Ray and I spent 3 weeks hiking around the national parks out west. It was fantastic! I had never spent so much time in the outdoors, just walking and fishing and hiking.
Ray left at the end of that summer to visit his sister in the Phillipines (she was a Peace Corp worker and Ray and his brothers spent two weeks visiting her there). I went to San Francisco to visit my friend Lee, and at the last minute she asked if I wanted to go with her family to hike up Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the mainland US. I was in great shape, and felt great walking up that mountain. My ego was a little hurt by the tv cameramen who were following the 80 something year old woman who was doing her yearly hike up the mountain; but it was reinforced by the physicall ailments of the young, athletic men (who had not acclimated themselves to the mountains) and threw up on the top of the mountain!
Ooh can you feel the same
Ooh ya gotta love the pain
Ooh it looks like rain again
Yeah feel it comin' in
The mountains win again
--Blues Traveler--
After that summer, graduate school began, I married Ray, Joseph was born, mortgages came rapidly. I loved all that came after, but that summer and that trip to Mt. Whitney were the end of an era in my life.
I always had vague plans to hike Killamanjaro, and trek around Mt. Everest. We have done some excellent hikes with the boys, especially in the last few years when they could carry all the weight!
When Joseph got his posting to Kenya we started planning the boys trip up Killamanjaro - we thought it would be a great bonding experience for them, and something they could always reminisce about as they got older. We were worried because one of our friends had climbed Killamanjaro with his family in the early 90's and one of their guides slipped on the ice and fell to his death. We gave the boys instructions and told them to be careful, but as we dropped them off with their guides we were so excited for them.
Of course all this travel is expensive, but we thought we were giving the boys an education and a world view. We don't spend alot of money on expensive cars or other consumer goods. Life is not about branding opportunities, it is about working hard (physically and mentally) and achieving goals that you might think are impossible.
