Getting together with old friends

In the last decade, we’ve gone our separate ways. We’ve retired, moved to sunnier climes, taken up heavy-duty hiking, biking and yoga, embarked on world-wide travels and done our share of volunteering. Most of us have left behind the days when we ran several times a week and participated in races, from 5ks to marathons, near home and as far away as The Big Apple. We no longer have a chance to share our lives on the weekend runs we took together for so many years.

Last Friday morning, the parking lot at Devil’s Backbone hiking area west of Loveland was filled with cars and knots of people getting ready to set out on the trails.  As soon as I pulled in, I saw them standing close together, clad in a rainbow of colorful t-shirts, already animated by each other’s conversation. Thanks to an especially thoughtful one of us, we’d been drawn together for a morning hike to be followed by lunch.

We hesitated for a few minutes, concerned by reports of a rattlesnake that had apparently taken up residence on the trail. But we soon forgot about him in our determination to get caught up. The rail was narrow enough that even walking two abreast was tough in places. And that was frustrating because we all wanted to interact with everyone in the group. We managed, switching off to chit chat with first one, then another, catching up on lives in a way that just isn’t possible via social media.

After a couple of hours, we found ourselves back at the parking lot, sweaty and ready to head toward our lunch spot, a popular Mexican restaurant west of Loveland. There we had a chance to relive some of our adventures; a trip to New York for a marathon, a biking adventure in Moab where rain turned the trail to mud and we had to carry our bikes to firmer ground, and a memorable hike and overnight stay at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Sometimes reliving an occasion is almost as much fun as doing it the first time.

Surely these events brought us closer to each other. Any time you bike, hike or run with someone for an extended period of time, you find yourself with your mouth open, sharing stuff you would never address in cocktail party conversation. In other words, the nitty-gritty stuff of life.

I’m so thankful for this brief opportunity to get together again. I’m thinking we’ll be in touch more frequently than we have been lately, and that makes me feel good.