An Unhappy Hiker

It was just over a year ago that Leina volunteered to drive 2/3 of the way across the country with Tony and Erica. She had promised to be the life of the party, keep up the witty banter, and learn how to drive stick. Instead, she sat, somewhat carsick, in the back seat for almost the whole way. She seemed to enjoy the Spam Museum and bought a few souveneirs for various cousins, and had a good time camping in the Badlands and squeezing into Tony and Erica's two-person tent. She also enjoyed singing along to "Since You've Been Gone" for most of the two dozen times it played on the radio.

The high/lowpoint of this trip occured when Erica talked Leina into climbing Harney Peak, the tallest point in continental North America east of the Rockies. Leina is generally a willing party to outdoor activities, as demonstrated by her rock-climbing and wakeboarding and so forth, but she was not happy during this walk. In fact, during the many years that Tony has known her, has never seen Leina so unhappy. She was thirsty, tired, and maybe felt some altitude sickness. Reaching the top was little solace to Leina, because it just meant that she needed to climb all the way back down.

Erica discovered a way to keep Leina occupied for much of the hike down. She asked Leina what her favorite foods were, and Leina responded with a cuisine-by-cuisine list of her favorite foods, which took over an hour, rapid fire, to get through. Leina has more favorite foods than most people have even tasted. She survived the descent, but got sick in the car and Tony had to pull over. Eventually, they had hamburgers in Wyoming.