I’ve been very neglectful this year.  I haven’t blogged, but trust me.  Stuff’s been going down.  Here’s a high level recap:

• January 2015:  Honestly, I don’t remember much from this month.  It was cold.  I’m sure it was probably cold.
• February 2015:  My girl surprised me with a weekend get away to Caprock Canyons State Park; home of the Official Bison Herd of the State of Texas!  Yes…we have an “offical” herd of Bison.  We also have an “official” herd of Longhorn, but that’s a different park.  I need to write a blog post on our time there.  Absolutely amazing!
• March 2015: This was not a good month.  My mom got really sick.  She ended up in the hospital.  She’s been a smoker for well over 50 years plus she had a bad heart valve that she never took care of.   A combination of several things led us to the end and she passed away after three weeks in Cardiac ICU.   Time spent at hotels with bad beds and chairs in ICU, led me to my sciatic nerve back problems cropping up in a very bad way which leads us to…
• April 2015: My back.  My back and I have been arguing for over a year now.  I had good days and I had bad days.  After March, the bad days weren’t getting any better.  If anything, it was all getting worse.  My acupuncturist (whom I love!) had moved further away and this was going to require constant attention.  I finally decided to see Laura’s Chiropractor.  It was going to be my last stop before considering surgery.  I went in whole hog and bought all the sessions my insurance would allow.  Three times a week I was in doing various therapies including aqua massage, roller and stem, stretches, massage, traction, and adjustments.  About two weeks into this, Laura found me laying in the floor on a Sunday bawling my eyes out.  Between grieving for my mom, pain, and everything else, I had reached my end.  I threw in the towel and went to my regular family doctor who prescribed muscle relaxers and pain medication.  I started with the muscle relaxers.   Within a week I started feeling like my pain had gone from 10 down to 6/7.  That’s a huge improvement for me considering  I have high pain tolerance.  A 10 for me is probably a 15 for the average person.
• May 2015:  Can you say water-logged.  It seemed every time I wanted to try to hike we had rain, rain, and more rain.  We here in Texas have been in a severe drought for well over 4 or 5 years now.  We received enough rain over April and May to not only bring all the lakes back up to their normal levels, but to cover the state in 8 inches of water!  Yes…we’ve had flooding.  Nothing here at the house; but I know all my trails where I live are now under water.  Yes…I’ve already added my name to the list of folks volunteering for cleanup and trail restoration.  Its time I give back to the trails that have helped me so much!
• June 2015: I’m finally able to get back to hiking!  All right…it’s walking around the neighborhood, but remember, all the trails around here now are under water.  I’ve been able to put in a couple of 4 mile hikes.  It feels good to get back out; although hiking on concrete is brutal.  You don’t realize how much reflection there is until you’re in it.  My hope is to figure out a good hike that will get me off the cement this weekend.  It may be I have to hike the easement for the electrical towers that run through town, but at least it’s getting out there.

At this point, I’m seriously considering a quick weekend trip out to West Texas, like El Paso to try and get some decent trail hiking in.  I better make those reservations soon.  My travel card is filling up this month with a ton of business trips .

Anyway…that’s the news from here.  What have you been doing?