LONGONOT!!

There is something about mountain-climbing as a family that we just love. This is the kids' long weekend mid-term school break, but my dreams of exciting and memorable camping trips had to bow to the reality of Caleb's intense school-work load of things due in the next couple of weeks, our post-call weariness, some unpromising weather, and general lack of planning and skill to know where to go in Kenya. So . . . we decided instead to drive to Mt. Longonot, which we can see from our yard, less than an hour's trip away, for a day-hike. The extinct volcano rises from the floor of the Rift Valley to over 9 thousand feet, and the hike from the base and around the rim and back down is about 20 km. The soggy misty cold of the last few days lifted, and we had a gloriously sunny morning. It took us about four hours (which is a pretty typically Myhre-intense pace) to do the circuit, pausing to look at the distant tree-tops below us in the crater, or to scan the dry acacia-strewn slopes for wildlife (saw one giraffe and one probable leopard at a distance). Steep rocky climbs, a narrow ledge of rim, dozens of species and colors of small wildflowers, a diving eagle, swooping swallows, sun, passing clouds, inches of billowing dust with every step, adrenaline moments of running down and peering out, a snack at the peak, conversation, long draughts of water, memories.

Jesus always took his friends up the mountain to get away, and we find it refreshing too. A heavenly dimension of sorts, quieter, different atmosphere, the extreme effort and thin air. Thankful for today. And it's probably a very good thing we're back home and not camping, because as soon as we returned Scott and the boys started working on our long-awaited new pizza oven. Yes, the Bundi tradition shall live on at Kijabe, eventually. It's a big project, but they're off to a good start.