Trail mix and bad directions

Carmen showed up at my dorm this morning with two water bottles and absolutely zero plan except “let’s go somewhere.” Next thing I know we’re driving twenty minutes out to some state park she found on MapQuest, armed with nothing but granola bars and the kind of confidence that comes from watching too much Discovery Channel.

Trail mix and bad directions

Turns out hiking is way harder than it looks on TV. Also turns out neither of us thought to actually look at the trail map before we started walking. We spent a good fifteen minutes at this intersection arguing about whether the blue trail or the yellow trail would get us back to the parking lot faster.

When you realize neither of us brought a map

But honestly? Getting completely turned around in the woods with your best friend beats sitting in the dorm any day. We eventually found our way back (Carmen’s sense of direction is apparently way better than mine), and now I’m sprawled across my bed with sore calves and dirt under my fingernails, already planning our next spontaneous adventure. Maybe next time we’ll bring an actual map.