When your backyard is beautiful, you really should play in it.

There is a trail that leaves pretty much from my front porch.

I've hiked it once.

Three months ago.

That's pretty pathetic.  Really.  There's no reason I shouldn't be out running that thing every morning.  I mean, other than the obvious fact that it goes pretty much straight up and only superhuman  mountain nutzos actually run the thing.  But really.  I should be out there.  On those days when I think about going for a run, but then don't.  You know those days when you get home and you think "I should work out, but there's laundry....and I need to go to the grocery store....and what if a bear eats me on the trail...."

OK, maybe I'm the only one that worries about that last one, but you get the idea....excuses.

People use precious vacation time and hefty doses of disposable income to get to this place that I call home.  So that they can hike their sea-level lungs up this amazing trail for a glimpse from the top.  AND I'M MAKING EXCUSES?  I have to walk a couple hundred yards to be in some of the most beautiful wilderness in the United States and I'm choosing laundry over this?

What is wrong with me?

Tonight I got out there, thanks to a friend who called at just the right time.  Those precious first few moments home.  Before you have time to snack, or make other plans.  When the idea of a workout still lingers every so faintly in your mind but before the "to do" list has had time to assert its dominance.

As we were walking, and talking, and venting, and sucking wind (again, just me really) I looked around and thought "why have I not been on this trail since May?"  This beautiful aspen-lined trail, climbing up the mountainside, overlooking a babbling stream, winding through northwestern-esqe groves, with wild mushrooms dotting fairy-tale looking mossy slopes, and wildflowers blooming in open meadows toward the top where sunshine warms you as you take in the panorama of peaks.  Below us a life-sized topographic map.  To the right, yet another beautiful sunset in the making.  Amber light warmed the aspens on our decent, and just as shadows stretched across the trail we found ourselves on my front porch.  No driving.  No traffic.

This place is amazing.  A-mazing.  But if all you see is Main Street for a while its easy to forget.

So no more excuses for me.  I'm getting out there.  Even if it just the same remarkably beautiful trail every single day.  I'll be out there.  Just because I can.