The Happy Hikers Club...new members welcome!

It's official...the Happy Hikers Club of Woodstock School has been formed. Now, I want to clarify...this is a NON-exclusive club, and we're always looking for more happy hikers to join...but there seem to be a few members that are extra happy to hike, and always up for a Saturday trek. This last Saturday, we went to Tatur!

To preface this post, you should know...this was apparently a pretty hefty hike for the 3rd week in. (there are some in the group that are marathoners/triathaloners...you don't count). I was talking with someone that's been here for a while, and I had to convince them that, "Yes, we did actually go all the way to Tatur". She thought I was confused, or that we'd only made it to a town we thought was Tatur, that we couldn't really have gotten all the way there. Sweet, huh?!

This last Saturday's Happy Hikers included: Cookie, Dave, Steve, Matt, and myself. Good group, lots of singing and joking and load of tripping/falling to be had by all.

Here's the beginning of the trail. Little did we know, this is the "long way to go."
Steve got the nickname "Shorty" on this trip, because he nearly killed himself finding every shortcut on the ENTIRE hike.
Dave, in one of his "ponderous" moments. He tends to have a lot of those on our hikes.

One of the many different scenes we saw on the hike. This felt like we could have been in Minnesota or Colorado...the air was SO clean and fresh!

The first village we came to. Cute, huh?!

Just hanging out on the hillside.

Just a cool old dude walking along.

This dog's leash is a vine...pretty creative, huh?!

We tend to see and be attracted to schools on our hikes, and this one was no exception.

This way to school!

The cute kiddies...we had the teacher's permission to take pictures this time.

Shoes lines up.

Another scene from our hike: we call this Dr. Seuss' playground.

We stopped at a temple to eat a snack, and saw some moving "bushes". Turns out to be people carrying bushes...who knew!

We shared our path nicely.

A beautiful view of Tatur.

This was my favorite part. We got into the "suburbs" of Tatur right when school was being let out, so we ended up walking into town with all the school kids. It started out with a few kids giggling when we'd say hi, and ended up being a PARADE (seriously, it was ridiculous!) of students of ALL AGES bringing us into town. Apparently, they don't see white people very often. :) Dave tended to be an attraction, probably because of his goofy grin and height. I have a fun video, I'll try to post it when I have more time. :)

See? They like Dave!

Cookie, Dave and I opted to take a jeep back up the mountain, since it had taken much longer than we expected to get down, and since it would be nearly ENTIRELY up-mountain to go back up! Luckily for us, this was the smarter decision. Steve and Matt ended up having quite a trek home...complete with monsoon downpours, huge leeches, charging bulls, lots of wrong turns and locals taking pity on them. They finally drug themselves into town around 10:15 PM that night...I was in the shower by 3:30. :) (read Steve's rendition...it's quite entertaining! 7-parts to it, make sure you've got time to spare!)

The rest of the weekend was great...hung with hubby, went into town, had some quality time with Laura and went to a birthday party for Adityah. It was a GREAT weekend, and I'm ready to start our first OFFICIAL FULL week of school!