Tennessee is far too long a state

After twelve hours in a very small Honda Civic, Kasi and I made it to Becca's house. Before we move on, I'd like to point out that her directions to the house included "turn left by the taco stand." This was a moment of clarity for me; we were rolling into a town where the tacos? They are sold out of stands? Not that I would ever eat a taco stand taco, but still. The fact that other people eat taco stand tacos means this place might actually serve BBQ ribs with actual ribs and not vegan tofu rib substitute.

In the car, in one of our many half-delirious conversations, Kasi ended up divulging some pretty interesting factoids. Like how she and Becca had agreed to refer to everything as a "walk." As in, "Hey Robin, let's go take a walk around the mountain park!. Or, "Hey Robin, let's take a walk to that waterfall in the park brochure!". Replace "hike" for every "walk" and you've got the truthfull description of the activity. But knowing my proclivity to veto a hiking excursion, the girls were going to try a little bit of trickery- all in an attempt to get my chubby ass up a mountain.

The thing about hiking is that I don't necessarily hate it. Its just that I have a very literal translation of words, and when someone says "Let's go hiking!" I assume they mean "Let's take up our walking sticks and leap like goats from boulder to boulder!". This literal translation problem is the exact same thing that got me into trouble when my friend Lily suggested we "float" the river. Only "float" really meant "paddle fervently inside a metal Canoe of Death," and did not mean that we were going to float gracefully down the river on a no-paddling-needed flotation device.

I have to admit, the walking trick probably would have worked. But now that I am wise to their ways, they will have to provide physical proof that the "hikes" are free from boulder-jumping. I am, quite obviously, not a goat. Also, shoe-oriented Southern girls have a very hard time reconciling their outfit with sneakers.