Weekend after weekend, Bill has been dragging Kaitlyn and I to the car, stuffing us in and driving to some path just past an almost-shabby looking hotel on the route to Chamrousse. He’d heard that if you took that path, you’d get to a waterfall. So we tried. The third Sunday in a row he proposed making the trek, I think I burst into tears. That’s the only waterfall he’s seen so far.
A few days later I decided that maybe part of my reluctance to hike is that I simply do not look the part. Forget my perfect pear -shaped figure. No, no, the clothes. Like Ted in Curious George, I knew I needed to dress for the role of avid hiker. He got a yellow suit with a matching hat. (the new khaki)
I knew just the place to make my transformation. A store called Decathlon.
See, this very strange thing happens to me when I go into a store like Decathlon. With absolutely no experience or ability, I become 98% convinced that I am actually athletic. I think that with the right shoes and a new outfit, I can hike or bike or ski or play tennis. (Ok, I can play tennis sort of, which is more than I can say for those other things) So once I went in, I just knew that some hiking clothes would actually give me the ability and desire to hike with Bill.
I got black fleece pants, a mint green fleece top and a paprika colored jacket. All in the largest size I could find. I didn’t get the really cool hiking pants with pockets that would have carried my cell phone and id and cash (you never know when you’ll find a place to shop)… the biggest size I could find of those was a French XL.. marked US 12. Looking at them, I just knew they weren’t even going to be a 12. I didn’t buy the hiking boots I found. I should have. Ironically, it’s hard to find my small size here.
That was a couple of weeks ago. And for a couple of weeks, my hiking clothes have sat in my super cool bag from Decathlon (it’s nylon and tucks into a little plastic ball you can easily drop into your purse). I’ve been afraid to try them on.
This afternoon I thought, hey, I bet those fleece pants are comfortable for just sitting around the house. So I dumped my hiking attire out of the cool bag and pulled them on. Barely. For a country filled with pastries, bread, cheese and wine they don’t need big clothes. This means I am actually going to have to GO HIKING in order to even fit into the small hiking clothes masquerading as big huge hiking clothes I bought without looking like a sausage. Yumm… sausage….