Little Steps: Day 16 – Rain and Self Confidence

Day 16: 1.6 miles / Total miles: 12.31mi / Days left: 163 / Time: 48:31min

Today was just another regular grey drizzly day here in the Pacific NW.

Not enough rain to use wipers, but just enough to be annoying not to use them.

I have lived in the same area my entire life. I do not own an umbrella. I have them. But I do not use them.

Unless its during cheer season and I am sitting on a bleacher in the pouring rain watching my girls cheer.

When raindrops fall from our sky, either in a mist, a drizzle, showers, sideways rain, thunderstorm rain, torrential downpour, well you get the point.

When it rains, I head straight for the couch.

And it rains alot here.

No wonder I have a bunch of extra fluff.

Anyways, when it rains, I avoid doing anything and in the rain. I cannot stand being wet. It is too much of a hassle.

Wet clothes. Wet shoes. Wet coat. Cold feet. Cold hands. Soaked hair. Soaked everything exposed.

Which is a problem. Because in the PNW, it rains. Alot. Most of the year. Some form of grey sky covers us and some sort of moisture falls.

I am training for a major hike in less than 6 months. If I were to stay inside every time it rains…. I might as well stop now.

And that is just not an option.

Obviously, if it is a torrential downpour or thunderstorm, I will get comfortable on the couch. Obviously.

But I need to get used to hiking and being in the rain. Because this is the PNW. It very well could rain on my solo* backpacking trip.

And if it does, I might as well prepare for it.

So that is exactly what I did.

I had a different trail planned for today. But I forgot about my counseling appointment.

It took me pretty much all day to finalize which park I would go to today.

I had narrowed it down to a park I went to 2 weeks ago, or a park that I have been at with the kids to play on the playground, but never went on any of the trails.

I chose the latter. And I am glad I did.

Unfortunately, this park was not in the AllTrails app. So I wasnt sure how long it was going to be.

I wasnt flying completely blind. I had downloaded the map for this park last night. But I did not know exactly how long the loop I wanted to do, was going to be.

Thankfully, I had plenty of time. My kids are back to their normal routine. Which meant I could relax.

Or at least go at a relaxing pace.

This wasnt a difficult trail. But I learned I cannot stand hiking on gravel paths or bark chip paths. It’s like walking thru sand.

Actually, this is the first trail where I just put one foot in front of the other and kept moving.

I paused slightly here and there to take some pictures.

I didnt stop. Oh but trust me, I wanted to.

But you see, it was raining. And we were outside. And all the benches were *gasp* wet.

Having a wet butt was not on my list. Sitting down and taking a breather, was definitely not worth a wet butt.

So instead, I paused for a heartbeat or 5, and took pictures of every wet bench.