A Stroll Up In The Austrian Alps

I decided to test my athletic endurance and join along in a group outing (Toblerone’s hometown music club…) and hike up the Alps in Austria (This one’s for you dad!) I bought the hiking boots (my first real deal pair) and some of those really fun trekking sticks that I talked about way back when which, honestly, I never thought I would ever get into but considering I was climbing up a somewhat sketchy mountain and interesting terrain I decided a little help couldn’t hurt along the way.

So I was pretty pissed at myself for forgetting to set my pedometer but at least I remembered to bring headphones! Off we went with 16 people and Harley the dog. I jammed out to Dave Matthews, Amos Lee, and Incubus all the way up in the Alps and it was an absolute dream. I picked wild blueberries along the way which somehow got me all nostalgic thinking about that book, “Blueberries For Sal.” Do you people remember that book? Amazing. I need to buy it.

It was incredibly hot and the sun was blaring down on my pale, freckly, Irish skin. There were moments I felt it would never end. Climbing straight up for 3.5 hours is not really what I call exciting. However, as I got into it I really started to enjoy it and couldn’t wait to partake in some beverages once we reached the top. I definitely have a thirst to discover as much as the world as I can in my lifetime and I’ll do whatever it takes to quench that.

From what I understand you can find many little houses/resting places along the way and we stayed at one that was 1,900 meters up (1.18 miles/ 6,233 feet). So after hiking for 3.5 hours my feet felt like they were going to fall off, my skin was like bacon, and I was exhausted. Harley was having a grand old-time making running to the front of the pack then tripping people on his way to the back of the pack and he repeated this the entire time. He did good but was completely exhausted by the time we reached the house.

Here’s a little 360 view of our group and the view at the halfway point! 🙂

We had dinner, lots of drinks….too many drinks I mean….and stories around a large table. Other tables of hikers were singing and dancing. All sorts of merry things going on which is unusual for me but precious at the same time. Do I sound cheesy? Worst night of my life as far as sleeping was concerned. It was SO loud, these small rooms with no insulation left lots of opportunities for the early risers to annoy me to bits! Hangover in full throttle so I decided to leave the bedroom and hang out and watch the sun rise. Couldn’t eat breakfast and walking more than 5 foot steps was about to send me over the edge, literally. How in the world would I make it 3.5 hours down the mountain? Well…I found my cure for hangovers. WORK IT OUT!  As the toxins left my body, I gained some strength back…enough not to puke!

On our way home from Austria…our car decides to overheat…and with 4 cars full of people no one can get it together and come up with a good idea of what to do. The car service like AAA was only good for Germany and we were maybe 20 minutes from the border. DAMMIT! Stupidest idea of the century which guaranteed an immediate death sentence was to have another car pull us. As in we sit in our dead car  and go happily along the autobahn via a string! What in god’s name?!  We were given one burst of luck that got us to a rest area just down the road and there we had an impromptu picnic with Harley as we waited for someone to come get us.

So without further ado…check out the cool pics!!! 🙂 Wish you all could be here!!

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Until next time, Readers!!! xoxoxoxoxoxo