It’s great to be back. I was up in the Austrian Alps. I didn’t have internet connection for one whole week. Okay, I know that even up there one can stay connected online. Heck, perhaps even at the peak of the highest mountain in the whole world, one can still be connected to the WWW nowadays. Thanks to the people who contribute to the advancement of technology. My being offline though for the whole week was actually by choice. It was a chance to be reunited with mother Nature. A time to experience life again without any phone calls, emails. The chance to embrace the primitive way of life of our ancestors. It went okay in the beginning. At least until one day, hubby and I lost our trail and ended up at a cliff 1889 meters high. Then we decided GPS is important. It took us longer to get down. At which point, my right knee was already getting really uncomfortable. I could hardly bend it. Imagine going downhill without bending your knees. Terrible. We finally managed to find the clearing.
It was fun. Everyday we took different trails. Each day was an adventure on its own, depending on how difficult the trail was. Really, every trail was different from the other. From light and fun to hard and adventurous. The trail where I had difficulty with my knee was not the hardest, but it was the highest and longest trail we took. It felt like the wandering would take forever that day. Amazing how one could walk for hours and still after some point you find that you only walked 300 meters away from the last point. Of course, when one is suffering from discomfort and pain, then this happens which was for me the case. But, in the end it was also a very good trail.
We also took a really light trail, where we just went through the towns and the altitude of the place was not too high. It was in this wander trail where I found my boots. Two, even.
I saw the high cut soft leather boots from the window outside the shop. I went in, tried a pair on and I fell in love with them. It was a bit too much for my normal price range, but they are really good and comfortable. I decided to close an eye and paid for the pair.
As I was on my way out of the shop, a low cut pair of boots caught my attention. I thought, nah, maybe I don’t need it anymore. I went already way too much my price limit with the other one. I sure should not look at more. But then hubby urged me to try it as well. See, my problem is that I always have a difficult time shopping for shoes. I could go from shop to shop the whole day and simply come home empty handed. Hubby knows this already and he always thinks that if I find something which I really like, I should already grab it immediately and not think twice about it. Otherwise, If I leave it overnight and then go back another day, I would find that the thing is already sold out and would end up getting something that I only half wanted. Of course, each time this happens, I always reprimand myself. I don’t know why, but It keeps happening to me anyways.
Oh, by the way, I don’t plan, of course to use any of these two new boots for wandering, hehehe. For that, a special one was ordered. It actually didn’t matter to me before what shoes I wear for wandering as long as they were comfy enough to walk in for more then 3 hours. But, I soon realized that if one is really serious about wandering, then one also needs to be properly equipped for it. Since I got my wandering shoes more than a year ago, I never had problems with feet nor ankles. Not to mention if we have to go through really rough trails, I am confident enough that I wouldn’t just slip or loose my balance. I tell you, it pays! Curoious? Here they are. Not so impressive or extravagant looking. But they are my three favorites at the moment.