A Suite Sweaty Saturday
While I will admit I was longing for the higher temperatures of the south while in Chicago, that desire is long gone. For the first Saturday, my suite and some friends decided to go on an early morning hike to avoid the heat. Plus I got to play some ultimate frisbee for the first time in a while since we had an informal hat tournament!
The original plan was to hike for an hour and then check out the local farmer’s market. We arrived at Percy Warner Park around 9 AM ready to hike. However, I quickly realized after the many steps to the top where the paths start that I was seriously out of shape. Percy Warner has a main paved road for bikers, cars, and hikers, but there are also unpaved paths through the woods. All of these paths surround a mountain/hill/elevated piece of land that puzzled me as a native Midwesterner (there’s a reason it’s called the Great Plains). After about an hour of walking up and down on the paved loop path, we realized we were no closer to the end than if we just turned around. We tried taking small paths as short cuts, but after being given wrong directions twice and walking in a circle for an hour, we finally just turned around. Three hours and 6.4 miles later, we finally made it out. While we had lots of good conversations and the forest was beautiful, I was exhausted, hot, and so relieved for the hike to end.
The group before our hiking adventure!
After the hike, some of us went to Bobbie’s Dairy Dip, which is an old cute ice cream and burgers stand. I overloaded on food after hiking so much, and my ice cream cone and hamburger were quite tasty.
The first Saturday of the year is also when the club frisbee teams have their annual hat tournament. It’s basically a chance for anyone interested in joining to play and for old players to have some fun. Since the hike lasted much longer than expected, I ended up only playing frisbee for an hour. I was thankful though, since playing frisbee without shade in the scalding heat can be miserable and incredibly sweaty and gross. Needless to say, it was a fun Saturday full of athletics and I even got to swing dance later that night. However, I am currently really sore, so I think I’m going to avoid exercise for a couple days while I recover…