Hike #1: Blue Job disaster

Retroactive post from May 26th:

 I decided to start my summer off with a "I'm horribly out of shape, let's just do a nice small hike to stretch my legs out and remember what exercise feels like" hike.

Which of course turned into several miles of black fly hell.

Josh, Irwin and I hiked Mount Blue Job in Rochester/Strafford on a sunny 80+ degree day. 

Weasel had to ride on Josh's lap cuz my bike was in the back seat

It started off how we wanted: Out of shape breath loss for less than a mile, followed by a nice view.

I don't know why Josh is doing this.

Then the black flies found us. BAD. In panic mode, we got the hell out of there and followed what we thought was a loop down the other side, but quickly found out this was not the case. We then came across 2 random houses in the middle of the woods on roads no car should be able to travel to. Whether these were abandoned houses nobody has touched in years, hunting lodges, or some sort of Grizzly Adams murder shacks, we weren't sure. But one of them certainly felt like the latter. 

I did what made sense- I followed the fire road we were on, assuming it would take us out of the black fly madness (seriously, it was some of the worst insect havoc I've ever experienced, and it never let up). 

Turns out, I was very wrong. Josh finally pulled out his iphone and based on GPS, we were heading 100% in the wrong direction. Yes, we were on our way out of the woods, but it would have taken us a mile or 2 to get 3-4 miles away from the parking lot. Thank you iphone, because this is how we looked at that point:

Misery

All in all we probably walked 4-5 miles and got absolutely demolished by bugs. Josh has sworn to never go outside with me again, and we both hurt pretty bad the next day. 

But my sweet new hiking shoes held up nicely, and we learned 2 valuable lessons: 

1. Always have bugspray

2. Always be prepared, because even on the easiest hike you know, when you're a moron, it's not hard to get lost and nearly die.