I'm not sure. The first thing coming to mind is hiking up a mountain in Nevada with one of my brothers and his wife. Maybe because it was so unusual from my usual routine. The conditions were unpleasant. We'd hiked up so far, we passed the timberline and were buffeted by constant winds. There were fields of shattered rock and the only growing things were small, such as lichen, an occasional shrub and smaller plants. There was a shelter from the wind made of a low wall of rock. You had to lie down to get out of it. I had difficulty pronouncing words and my fingers felt stiff.

I don't want to make it seem like we were doing some super-challenging thing, though, as a group of children were coming down from the mountain top and encouraging my sister-in-law.


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