Redemption and Revitalization at 8000 Feet

My kids, halfway up Black Elk Peak, right before they ditched me and my Dad.

My dear reader, I have so much to share with you that I will be posting my bi-weekly blogs like I used to. I've taken a couple of trips recently, one of them to South Dakota for my yearly vacation. A little over a year ago, I posted about my goal to climb Black Elk Peak. I didn't do it then, but I trained ever since that moment to hike it again.

See, when I was fourteen, my Dad took me on a two-week vacation to South Dakota. I had a lot of fun until the fateful day he drug me up Harney Peak - since renamed Black Elk Peak. I had no desire to hike at that age, and I whined a lot - and even got really angry at one point. Years later, after I became a seasoned hiker, I knew I wanted to go back and conquer it. Conquer it I did. I fought old, fat and out-of-shape me and I fought my crippling fear of heights to conquer that mountain. 

And, as I stood in the old fire tower, looking out over the majestic and overwhelmingly massive landscape, I felt a few things. I felt a sense of accomplishment that I haven't felt in a very long time, I felt redeemed from all those years ago, and I felt a sense of peace. Everything I have gone through, all of the personal turmoil, over the last year and a half were finally wiped out on the mountain at nearly 8000 feet. 

I came back down from that mountain exhausted yet renewed. I'm ready to move forward and move beyond. My life has been reclaimed.