My love is currently hiking the Warner section of the Pacific Crest Trail.  Me?  I had plans with my mum to hike a route previously done with him to show her a mine hole.  Yeah, okay, probably a better word for it, but that’s what I’m calling it.

I woke up to his photo of where they slept last night.

Yeah, OK hearty hiker and Naked and Afraid contender.  I do NOT want to dig a hole to um, ‘do my business’ and what the heck would be crawling off that rock in the night?   I’m just jealous lol.  But, also kinda serious.  Would love to camp anywhere if there was at least the amenities of a toilet and running water.  Whimp right?  I don’t need much. But, splashing water on my face, brushing my teeth and hair with a mirror is the last of the vanity things I care about.

ANYWAY!

SO!  Mum and I were going hiking.   I wanted to show her an easy hike that culminated in a mine shaft.  (AKA: Mine hole. lol)

I forgot that my tiny car was a tiny car and once we got to the turn off I was a little worried about making it to the spot to park. Guess how I knew we were there?

The C+A I left behind when I went last.  Can’t believe it was still there!  Had to park carefully, a lot of soft sand.  (Whole other story, but first time I came out to my guys house, had to have them tow me due to THEIR soft sand.)

Parked and ready to go!  I totally knew where to start.

What I didn’t factor in was that when hiking with my gold mining guy, a hike takes 10 times longer due to “See that?”  “Do you see this vein?”  And constant and adorable samples taken.

As for my mum and I?  We just hiked.  So … got thrown a little off course.

Began normally.

Oh! And I now have a new rule!  If you aren’t seeing Burro shit on your hike, you have no business going that route!  (IE:  the fucking mountain we went up last hike.)

So, clearly on the right path here.  LOL.

We got to a point when we could circle back, but, didn’t seem right.  I mean, when my honey and I went, it was hours … so we kept going. (I was not factoring in the geological stops and lessons and samples.)

We kept going to the point we found ourselves in what we labeled a ‘residential area’.  Very over grown, and lots of nooks and crannies, we went back.

My mum has now multiple times asked me, “Do you know where you’re going?”  Yes, I knew.  But, wasn’t entirely sure how lol.  I was looking for that ‘mine hole’.  We tracked back – we took other routes – because, I was CERTAIN the first time my guy and I went out, we walked FOREVER.  We had not.

We eventually found a place I thought was my original grotto, and was certain we were on the right path.

Um, Was NOT original grotto. Spoiler alert – we found that later.

We were having too much fun to care.  Just being out there – together.

We tracked back a bit and decided that we should mount a mountain to get to the trail we were looking for.

Found it.  BUT!  unfortunately, passed the mine hole in doing so.

This happened instead.

First time my guy and I did this route, there was ONLY the boat.  My mum said, “There’s a car?”

Sure was – and apparently an old police car.

The closer we got, I dug into my backpack for my knife and pepper spray.  The car was tagged with graffiti on the hood and I have NO clue how it got there in such a short time since my last hike there.  This became more of a concern when we passed it and it had clothes inside.  (My mums words, “Hope there isn’t a body in there” didn’t go unnoticed.  I was more concerned with a walking talking one.)

Wanted to take a pic of the inside of the car, but honestly had that ‘gut feeling’ we needed to keep moving on.  Someone was obviously living in that car.  We had my mum’s steel toed hiking boots and my knife and pepper spray.

Wind was blowing so I would have been like, “Keep kicking mum!  Keep kicking!  I’ll slice him and when the wind dies down spray him.”   Dramarama imagination.

We pass the car and keep going … all the way home.

And, for a joke, here is me finding THE golden nugget!

Sent that to my guy lol!  The golden nugget of today was actually getting to spend one on one time with my mum and that exceeded the hike.  So great to go out.  So great to be with her.  So great, ANY day to wake up and get to do anything.