Picturesque

That's one way I could describe the short trip I took this weekend. I got the chance to visit the mountains, the Tatras, and do a little hiking. I stayed at the penzion (small hotel) while I was there. Saturday was the day that we went up on the mountain and the forecast was for a chance of rain.

We could see clouds up on the mountains when we started out at around eight in the morning. It wasn't exactly rainy looking, but it wasn't exactly clear either, that was for sure. All through the hike up there were times that the sun would shine and times when the clouds would take over and make the brisk mountain air seem just a little colder.

The hike took us a little more than three hours to get to the point at which we were to turn around (Sliesky Dom). The trail was gently slopped the whole way and consisted mainly of rocks, roots and a little dirt. It wasn't such a bad trail, it's just that it's hard to look at all the scenery around you without twisting your ankle.

I tried my best to look at everything around me and I'm happy to say that I didn't twist my ankle. I was able to take a number of pictures, but not nearly as many as I wanted to. It was hard because I kept getting behind which made the others have to wait on me after a while.

As we were hiking up and I was taking pictures all of a sudden my camera went dead. I wasn't really surprised since it was pretty cold with the wind blowing, so I just popped the battery that was in it out and stuck in my back-up battery. The second battery lasted for all of about ten pictures before it shut off. I put the batteries in my pocket so they would warm back up, but that didn't work. I'm still not sure what the deal was since I had charged both batteries before leaving for the trip. I ended up just having to shut my camera off and turn it back on after every two pictures or so (for some reason I can continue to take pictures for some time even when the battery is supposedly empty). This got me the rest of the way to the top and all the way back down.

We were in the mountains, that was for sure! The wind was blowing off and on, and the overall temperature when the sun was shining was around 5 degrees C. The valley that we were in was partially shaded and the water that was in the lake there was cold. We sat by the lake and ate lunch, all the while craning our necks to take in the magnificent landscape that was around us.

I don't know if you've noticed or not, but I changed the settings on this post so the pictures would be as big as they could be. The picture above I think would look best if it was poster size, but that's just because it was so big in real life. I think I could have sat there all day and looked at all those rocks and brown grass, the dark green of the scrub pine and the crystal blue sky. The fresh mountain air added a lot to the experience, as well as the tightness that I could feel in my leg muscles. I guess there's just something about climbing a mountain that makes all the work worth it, that is if the weather is nice (but then that depends on how you define the word "nice").

I am really glad that I got to experience the Tatras this past week because they say that autumn is the best time of the year weather wise. It really was a good trip, even though we didn't go where we had at first planned to go, but just being there in the mountains was worth it.

I guess that'll just about finish this post up. I hope you can enjoy the pictures even though they are still pretty small. O, and what do you know, but I've even got a picture of myself just to prove that I really was there!