Renaissance Dad: Love Means Never having to Wear Hiking Boots
Spring sunshine creeps through the curtains, throwing lacey shadows across the thick comforter of our hotel bed. Victoria, the amazing woman who became wife on this very morning, years ago, appears with a tall, steaming carafe of coffee.
Ah, my life is good.
She leans down, her lips brushing my ear, and whispers…
“Don’t forget to wear your hiking boots.”
My hiking boots? Oh yes, today we’re going hiking.
Crap.
Our annual State-of-the-Perkins Hike began on our second anniversary, while strolling lazily down the beach and holding hands as we remembered aloud the highlights of our first year. Now it’s an entrenched activity, complete with maps, notepads, planners, and pens. It’s our opportunity to sum up the events of the last twelve months and set goals of the coming year.
Example:
Vic: “What do you think about paying off the car, and putting that payment in Gracie’s college fund?”
Me: “Gasp . . . WHEEZE . . . Gasp . . .”
It’s a very productive time for us.
Increasingly, however, it also tends to be a grueling, sweating, death-march up some nearly non-existent goat-trail (a very small, inebriated goat) to some gray stretch of ocean, a waterfall or, heaven help me . . . another lighthouse.
Each year I swear that I’ve learned my lesson, that next year I will find us a cushy resort with a nice ocean-view wayside to sit and compare notes while sipping my bacon-mocha latte, and enjoy the beauty of God’s creation as He intended . . . from the padded comfort of heated bucket seats.
Apparently, a year is too long to remember such things.
To read more, pick up a copy of the February 2019 issue at any of these locations, or view the digital archive copy here.
