This is the story of a hike in the woods of the Eifel region in Germany last November. I do this to join the Behind the Photo Contest, organised by @nelyp and @johan.norberg. You can check out their blog, or click the link if you want to join in the future.

My overachieving wife ;-)

We try to go on a mid-week trip every year with the family and an other family, with both our dogs. We usually do this in the vacation of begin November we have in Belgium. This year we went to the Eifel region in Germany. A beautiful area with great landscapes and lots of woods. Ideal for some nice long walks and hikes with our dogs. But there are two little issues, first my wife is an overachiever, she always wants to go for the longest hike, and kind of over estimates herself a lot ;-). And the other issue is the dog of our friends, called Mia, is already 9 years old and has a little bit of problems with her knees an hips. But she never gives up!

Now, on this particular day, we could go for a hike of 6, 9 or 14 kilometers. Of course my wife said, let's do the 14 kilometer one. She says, "look at the map, it is all flat", which would mean no problem for Mia, the dog. We all had our doubts, but we went for it. With some amazing pictures as a result, like this one of Mia, eating her heart out in of the small creeks.

Me and my wife at the beginning of the hike, not a cloud in the sky!

A few kilometers later...

...the real challenge started, apparently the path we were following was not so flat and it was filled with rubble from trees and big branches. This little creek we were following sometimes becomes a roaring mass of water that takes with it everything that is it's path. But that luckily wasn't the case that day. But the challenge began, climbing uphill, over trees, under trees, into very narrow pathways, a big challenge for us, but even more for our kids and the old dog Mia. I have no clue how this wonderful "lady" managed to take all the hurdles that day.

I think we did about 5 kilometers of stepping of trunks

Not a clue where we were

The kids had the time of their lives, even though it was an intensive exercise, but it was best they didn't know we actually lost track of where we were. The map the lady from the tourist office gave us didn't really correspond with what we were encountering. But as good parents try to do, we kept the mood up, and tried to keep a good face, although we did have a little scare of sleeping in the woods that night. That luckily wasn't necessary as we had a little help from a local, who gave us a shortcut, after we already had 20 kilometers in our legs!

This was the result when we finally came by the car:

Every single one of us was completely nackered. Our last bottle of water was almost empty, and we slept like a rose that night. Except for the dogs, they had another run that night, apparently it still wasn't hard enough for them!

All the pictures in this story were taken by me, with an Iphone 11 on November 2nd in Trierweiler, Germany.

Sincerely,

Pele23