This morning I was supposed to go hiking third wheel style up the closest mountain but the English lovers slept the day away. Around noon I gave up on them, geared up, and decided to go ahead and do the hike on my own.
Sidenote: I am sorry to say that I broke the vow I made at Cedar Creek in 5th grade to contribute as little DEET to the environment as possible. The bugs here are killing me and if its either me or them...well, I chose me.
Anyway, everything was going smoothly until I got to the gondola drop off point and then it started to pour. I made the decision right away to man up and hike to the top of the mountain in the rain. It was just one of those things that I felt I needed to do. Well, that lasted about 20 minutes and then I heard the thunder and saw the lightning followed by about 100 Japanese hikers running downhill towards me and shouting things at me as they passed. I can only assume that they were commenting on how stupid I was to be going up instead of down so I gave up and followed the masses back toward the gondola station. But I wasn't ready to go home yet. Instead I found a nice dry place for the camera and headed back into the rain. I was feeling all spiritual up on top of this beautiful mountain (that I couldn't see because of the fog) so I did the whole double clap and bowing routine to the earth since there was no temple and then threw up a prayer to my Christian God before laying down on my back snow angel style in the middle of the botanical gardens. I am pretty sure I wasn't supposed to actually be in the garden but not a soul was around because of the rain. Maybe I came to the top of the mountain to see a beautiful view of the Japanese Alps but what I got was so much better. Laying on my back in the pouring rain on top of a mountain in the most beautiful place I have ever been, I felt alive like never before.
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