It turned out to be a beautiful day on the ascent - I hit the trail at 7 am to avoid those afternoon thunderstorms we've been having here. And as the going got steeper and the air thinner I made sure to stop frequently for a minute or so to catch my breath and take in the amazing views: including big horn sheep in the meadows across from the trail, and lots of cute little Marmot scampering about, like this guy:
It's a long hike - 3.5 hours up - and steep. Very steep, with lots of loose rock to stumble on. It tests an old slave's cardio-vascular system, and for another year I seemed to pass the test. Though I did have my doubts. When I finally made the summit I found myself up there with a young woman who, for the life of me, seemed to have the body double of Mistress at age 26, or so, when I first was smitten by her.
Was this an hallucination? Had I really had some heart attack somewhere on the trail and completed the climb in some other dimension?
She had the same long sexy legs, her tight ass tightly contained by what clingy riding shorts that left little to the imagination. Her hair was a sun bleached brown. And when the cool breeze at the summit kicked up, the skin on those long legs broke out into some mind boggling goose bumps that called out for a man to hold her tight and warm her up....
"Mistress.... is that you.... have we been reunited in some alternative universe? "
(I hope I didn't say that our loud, but I can't be sure.)
Well apparently it was not an hallucination. Once I caught my breath and my heart beat returned to something comparable to a resting pace, I struck up a conversation: this vision from my past was actually a medical resident from the Denver area, who was young enough to be a middle daughter for me. And while her stunning bod made her a dead ringer for the Molly I met back in 1987, her face was more Chloe Sivigny. Still, not bad.
Shame on you old Slave!
When I briefly lost my balance perched on a rock to take a photo of the amazing view, I made a quick recovery. "Good catch", she said, she mentioning it was good there was a doctor around in case I busted my skull (or something). Somehow I felt reassured. But I was tempted to consider faking some malady that might require her to conduct an "examination".
She took a photo of me at the top on my camera. And I took a photo of her on my camera. I was tempted to ask her if it was OK for me to "capture" her on my camera, purely for tourism purposes of course. But my training kicked it. We exchanged first names, but Mistress will be happy to know that I made no effort to suggest I "show her around town" last night after our hike was completed... presuming that I survived.
Of course, any interest Slave had in this vision from our past was purely nostalgic!
(No Suzanne, I did not wear the cage on this 7 hour hike.... just to get that question off the table.)
In the meantime, Mistress was having her own adventures in the mysterious East. She sent photos from a 19,000 ft. altittude lake at the border of India and China, including this photo of some Yaks in a nearby pasture:
Finally, some of you drawn by the HNT tag are probably wondering: is all we get Marmots and Yaks.... I want my money back... oh yeah, if this was a pay site, Google would have pulled our plug. So in all fairness, here is a photo of happier times here at the Mountain Hideaway:
