Why would you move to Kentucky?

This was a question I tried to answer to many people who I knew would never understand.

4:00 PM Friday: after a slow drive home fom work which included a side trip to scout for bouldering, the kids are just waking up from their naps and Andrea is ready to get out of the house. We pack a picnic and walk down to our canoe and I paddle the crew for about an hour and a half to the Marina. There we picnic and buy a Klondike bar. We paddle back home throught the lush forest lake and of course swiming and cliff jumping ensue before baths and bedtime.

6:00 AM Saturday. I wake up intime to see the first pink light of sunrise peeking through our oak and hemlock forest to the East. I talk Andrea into joining me for earling morning yoga on the top of a cliff over looking the lake. We watch the lake mirror the sky as it slowly morphs from hazy pink to deep blue with white clouds. The mirrored surface of the lake is just to much. Andrea suggests a jump. As I'm falling and looking down into the perfect reflection of the sky I get a brief flash of vertigo and because the lake is so still I have no idea where the surface is so I hit with my mouth wide open. The water is cool but nowhere near cold.

7:30 AM We climb the trail (100' or so) back to the house and quickly get up the kids and jump into the car. Andrea drops me off in front of the local "general store" where the rocking chairs on the porch are always full of old men with work worn hands arguing about fishing bait and Obama. There I jump into a jeep with a guy I met last week, his brother and his brothers kid. I realize three hours later that only one of these guys is wearing shoes. (After three hours of hiking and running through the brush.) We go about 2 miles down the highway and turn off onto a tiny dirt road through dense forest that looks like it has not been driven on in years. The guys driving on the highway was completely unremarkable. As soon as we hit the dirt track though...he became a maniac. We caught air more than once, slid sideways around trees, and bottomed out the center of the jeep several times. We stopped at the top of a ravine and hiked down to an oasis for a soul thirsty for a little time on the sharp end of a rope. Less than 20 minutes from my couch to racked up and ready to pull on some pockets. The weekend is just begining..."why would I move to Kentucky?" I muse to myself as the steep hard sandstone begins to flow past my quickly pumped forearms.