Aaaaaaaand I'm out of here (FINALLY).

Have a great week, everybody-- I'll think of you when I'm lounging by the pool sipping Sapphire & Tonics and planning my next blockbuster shopping experience.

And by "you," I of course mean "Hugh Jackman."

BYE!!!

I am totally trying this with my next Diet Coke. Come on! It's Diet Coke. It needs all the help it can get.

Wishing you many excellent Sapphire and tonics, WTF. You know your gin, so how could I not? :-)

*gasp! How can you say that about Diet Coke?

I did (and sometimes still do) the twizzler and Sprite. Yum! And the twizzler tastes much better afterwards too.

I dyed a friends' hair with kool-ade - we mixed it with conditioner in order to put it on the hair. It worked really well. But her balcony looked like we'd just killed someone. Big red splotches everywhere. It makes your hair smell great!

I loved me some Fun Dip, and that toffee in the tartan box was MacIntosh. I used to keep it in the freezer then smash it into pieces. Mmm, now I'm craving it.

It sounds revolting to me, too, DuchessKitty! You're in Seattle, right? Take a good look around you, you may well be standing next to somebody who emptied ramen seasoning into their palm and licked it off when they were age 10 ... are you scared yet?

Hee-hee.

As for Chicken vs. Oriental, and as I was outside the whole fad scene, I have no idea if different flavors were better.

Thanks, Kanuck!. I kept meaning to do that, but forgot. So I actually saw the "same kid" every time, which means the one time I did think it was him it must have been a good camera angle or something.

iMissEthan, you are my hero.

I remember most of the candy you guys are talking about, and I also remember that I really didn't like most of them but I ate them anyway. Because, hey! It was candy!

My favorite candy growing up (purchased at the concession stand at softball games) was the fizz candy...you know, that hard candy filled with carbonation of some kind that fizzed in your mouth when you got to the middle of the hard candy. It came in a strip of five individually wrapped pieces for 15 cents. Those were the days!

Hey, GRBecca, I remember that fizzy candy. I loved those! Can you still get them anywhere?

Oh, I miss candy! We would all gorge ourselves on Pixi Sticks, and my first boyfriend gave me a strawberry Ring Pop and said we were engaged. Except then, when we got to be 13ish, we tried pouring the Pixi Sticks out on to a mirror and snorting it like cocaine. Uhm, yeah. And they say kids grow up too fast these days.

What I don't get, is why all of the candy now has to be something. It's candy! Kids like candy! There's no need to market it as a baby bottle, or cell phone or whatever else. It's candy!

Fizz Candy! I still find this from time to time. It is a family favourite. My brother usually hunts it down and puts it in our christmas stockings.

I think we did the ramen thing too, but we wouldn't just eat the flavour packets, we'd dump it on the dry noodles and eat it that way. I always did like the noodles. In Thailand they had many many more flavours of noodles, and for old times sake I did it with the hot and sour soup flavour. Yummy!

Snorting pixie sticks like cocaine? Ow!

We're getting a moment of silence as well:



So, hey, we're not required to participate. Statewide, though -- that's a little creepy.

Although I have to 'fess up, I did let it get to me this morning. Damned radio station while I was getting ready for work played clips of various Reagan speeches intercut with Ray Charles' "America the Beautiful." That was completely unfair manipulation of my emotions, and I gave right into it, damnit.

So, how long is a moment? They should really be more specific. Why do I have this image of the entire state of Michigan falling dead silent at 11:30 and never making any noise again? You're right, JenEx. That is creepy. Gives me a Twilight Zone or Outer Limits vibe.

I haven't heard anything about Pennsylvania observing a moment of silence, but to tell the truth, I haven't been paying that much attention.

That's evil, JenEx. Can't we even allow a little mourning for Ray, all by himself? Poor Ray. Really bad timing, any way you look at it.

I confess: I survived college and law school on Ramen noodles. Hey, 4 for $1 spoke to me at the time. Add some chopped carrot and onion, maybe some canned chicken to drained noodles? Not as hideous as it sounds. I swear. And please see aforementioned "4 for $1."

Due to bad weather (that isn't here yet but is supposedly coming), The Zzard and I have postponed our Ray Charles Memorial Hike until Sunday. (Hey, Rabrab, it's supposed to rain!) So I guess I'm on the Internet all day today. As usual.

I need to throw out the candy in my candy jar. It's old, I never ate it even before I gave up sugar, and none of it was chocolate. (Chocolate doesn't last long around here -- not even the bitter dark stuff I'm eating these days.) But I'm glad someone called out those candy cigarettes. They tasted like old paper with powdered sugar mixed in. Ewww.

To this day, I cannot eat Ramen noodles. I lived on them after college when I was working for what felt like below minimum wage at my first job. $250 a week. Granted, it was in Oklahoma, so things are cheaper, but not that much. Also, I was living in a town where I didn't know anybody and I was depressed and lonely most of the time. I bought a TV just so I could hear other voices at home.

The candy I miss most from my childhood that I can't find anymore is lemon disks. That's what I call them anyway. I don't know what they were called. Basically, they were just lemon hard candy, but not lemon drops. They were like peppermints, but lemon, except the center was slightly thinner than the outside. My grandfather always kept a bag in his glove box, so whenever my grandparents came to visit, he'd let us go out to his car and get a piece of lemon candy. I miss that.

I never used the flavor packet of the ramen noodles. I just cooked them, and ate them with butter and salt. Hildy, Woman of Bland, that's me.
I looove dark chocolate. In fact, my favorite candy as a kid was that Hershey's Special Dark. Much prefer that to Milk. I even like the Milky Way with dark chocolate better.
So my siblings and I are constructing a 19 foot tall pink flamingo to put on my folks' front lawn this weekend, in honor of Dad's 80th birthday. I've been cracking myself up all week thinking about this. Fortunately, my brother is an engineer, so we have a reasonable chance of a successful outcome here.

YES! Milky Way Midnight! That is my favorite candy bar of all time.

That is ambitious and impressive. Why a pink flamingo?

Equally intriguing, why 19' feet tall? And most importantly, can you all still outrun your Mom when she sees it?

The Vermont Country store still sells Sugar Daddies and Bit-O-Honeys. And Bosco Chocolate Syrup. They also have something called French Taffy that they blurb with "Remember Turkish Taffy? Try this." I may have to get some--I loved Turkish Taffy, and Laffy Taffy is not the same.

That candy with the fizzy center that comes individually wrapped in strings? Zotz.

My favorite childhood candy bar was Scrunch - by Wonka? Don't remember. Thin, peanut buttery center with crisps in it, covered in milk chocolate. My mother would give me lunch money every day and I'd spend most of it at the 7-11 or whatever on Scrunch bars and Little Debbie Nutty Bars (still the yummiest for the bargain price of $0.25). I have an unquenchable sweet tooth. It's a wonder I'm not diabetic, morbidly obese, or both.

Anyway, I remember spending idle class time placing the word "Scrunch" into well-known sayings. A Scrunch in time saves nine. Scrunch before you leap. A Scrunch in the hand is worth two in the bush. Etc. Yeah, some kids would rather do anything than pay attention in class. Maybe it was the sugar high.

My favorite gum was something called Stimorol. It was imported from Sweden, or something. Haven't seen it in 20 years or more. It started out tasting like licorice, but then mellowed... guess you had to be there.

I'm off to Mackinac Island for a conference next week. Taking the whole fam-damly this time. I've always made it a policy to go alone, as it's often awkward juggling family vs workpeople. I have several fun friends I see every year (kinda like Same Time Next Year, except for the sex) and we always have a great time. Hubby doesn't know anyone and might feel uncomfortable, and I want to relax and have fun. Then again, he might feel too comfortable, and that could be bad too. I have to take the kids this year, as the baby is not weaned yet, so we'll just have to be grown-ups instead of the party-animals we were in our youth. *Sigh* I just hope the weather holds out.

I'm loving the candy discussion. My friends and I often wander into this conversation with great nostalgia.

Someone refresh my memory, please. Was Turkish Taffy the one that came in a flat bar, hard as a rock, and you had to slap it up against a wall or something to break it into still-too-hard-to-eat pieces? Loved that stuff. BB Bats too.

I'm old enough to remember real penny candy. And was lucky enough to grow up in a neighborhood with several little stores that had whole counters of (unwrapped and, I'm sure, very un-hygienic!) penny candy. My envious suburban cousins used to love to come to visit and, with a quarter, could go home with a little brown bag stuffed with all kinds of penny candy goodness.

The saddest thing, though, is finding some of that old candy in specialty stores and finding out that they've changed it and it's crap now. Like little dots on the strip of paper. Or the little ice cream cones with the colored marshmallow "ice cream." Or "flying saucers" that tasted like communion hosts, with little non-pareils inside. You can still find 'em, but they're not so tasty anymore.

Well, our family has a little thing with pink flamingos. We put a flock of several dozen out for his 70th, so naturally we have to up the ante a little.
My mother actually knows all about this. She's a little stunned, but willing to go along. After all, she started the pink flamingo nonsense years ago, for reasons that are lost in the mist of time.
And why 19 feet? I'm not sure--I think that it'll come out to be about that tall b/c the ratio is right for a body made of one sheet of plywood and a neck and head made from another. The legs must be in proportion, of course. We're anchoring the whole thing to a pallet that'll be held down with concrete blocks, and some anchoring guy wires as well. Safety first!

Thank you, Rabrab. I had been calling "Laffy Taffy" by the wrong name. I'd somehow thought that there were Wacky Wafers and Wacky Taffy. I ws definitely thinking of Laffy Taffy.

Tribefan, I'm afraid that I don't remember Turkish Taffy. Can't help you there. Sounds like fun though. I can totally see my brother and I slamming taffy packets against the side of the house. I do know what you mean, about the modern versions of old classics just not making the grade. My offshoot pet peeve is the crappy quality of Cracker Jack "prizes" these days. They used to be so cool. Decoder rings. Toy cars. Tiny comic books. Oh well. What these kids today don't know, won't hurt 'em.

ETA, Hildy, if at all possible, hope you can post a couple of pics of the Flamingo that Ate Dad's Party, and link to them. Wouldn't mind seeing pics of your dad's 70th either. Hee, hee! My favorite "older family member party" story involves my mom's 50th birthday. Her friends threw her a surprise slumber party, complete with stuffed animals, pizza, popcorn, candy (yippee!), music from when they were all growing up and old movies. Even brought her a wild set of flannel pajamas to wear. I like the idea that growing up doesn't have to mean becoming boring. Mom's my idol.

Tribefan, yes, that's Turkish Taffy. It would bend if you bent it slowly, or shatter if you smacked it hard, but bite through it? No way, and it was quite the filling-yanker.

Hildy that sounds like so much fun. Sounds like quite the engineering feat, too, so yes, pictures, please?

and [ThatGrrl, I know what you mean about the 4/$1--I couldn't stand Ramen, but right after I got out of school, I found that I could live on the cheap-ass Swanson pot-pies, and I'd stock up when they went on sale 4/$1 (1979-80 ish). That and mac-and-cheese was my starving no-longer-a-student diet.

Me, too! I had no fillings as a child -- didn't get my first cavity until I was 26 -- so I ate it and the other gooey stuff to my heart's content.

I don't doubt that some of the candy isn't as good now as it was then. Many manufacturers use high-fructose corn syrup instead of sugar, and the quality isn't as good. But I also wonder if memory isn't a factor. I remember going to camp for 2 weeks when I was 10 with my friend D. Some family member sent us store-bought cookies, which we devoured and declared the best cookies ever. But when we got back and I asked Mom to buy the same brand, they weren't as good. As a matter of fact, I didn't like them at all. It was my first lesson in context and food.

The candy discussion has me remembering all sorts of fun things. I used to love Razzles and the chewy variety of Sweet Tarts, and Lik'm Sticks, which was the version I remember of the sugar powder and candy stick combo. And we all loved the candy lipstick - was great for your toy purse, you know? Candy necklaces are great, but not for the taste. To me, they represent a road trip tradition.
But you know, I remember when I was little and we'd come back from the corner store with all those sugar concoctions my mom would shake her head in wonderment that we bothered with all that "junk" when we could have chocolate. At the time I couldn't understand it. Chocolate was great too, but I loved that stuff. Now I don't think I could eat most of it if I wanted to. Mom was right. Give me some deep dark Belgian chocolate any day. But I still love Charleston Chews.

My Story about Special Darks and Why I Never Eat Them Anymore

When I was 10 I was obsessed with Special Dark candy bars. My mom was fascinated by the fact that she had a child who didn't care so much for bright colorful fancy candys, rather one who was refined and classy enough to enjoy dark chocolate the most.

Along came Halloween and my mom bought Hersheys Miniatures to give out. Early in the day she placed them in a bowl in the living room. I simply couldn't avoid the temptation and spent the entire afternoon smuggling Special Dark bars into the privacy of my bedroom where I could eat and eat and eat. That evening I put on my costume and was getting ready to head out Trick or Treating with my dad and sister. My stomach felt bad from all of the dark chocolate I had spent the day eating. On my first step out the door I puked Special Dark chocolate all over the front porch. I didn't get to go trick or treating and was sent to my room for stealing the candy.

This is why I Cannot Eat Dark Chocolate.

Hey! Federal workers! Why aren't you home mourning instead of tieing up traffic around the mall and Target? You're getting in my way!

Hey, are we telling Special Dark stories? Mine is set the summer after my junior year of high school, hiking in the Cascades with five other people. We each took with a jumbo-size Hershey's bar, and since I prefer dark chocolate to milk where Hershey's is concerned, I took a jumbo size Special Dark. Except for some reason I didn't eat any of mine, so when we put our food up in bear-bags on the last night, the full thing was left in the bag, along with some trail mix and various other unappetizing food. Come morning and we get the food down and ... hmmm, the bag has developed a new hole. Seems the tiniest little chipmunk crawled down the cord from the tree, chewed its way through the stuff sack, ate a tunnel through the candy bar, and we found it curled up in the trail mix. Cute as all get out but ruined the chocolate and trail mix!

I still like Special Darks, but I prefer them without wildlife.

It's disconcerting that some people's favorite candy from when they were a kid is candy I think of as new, upstart candy.

And now I'm hungry again so I guess I have to go stuff my face with Tootsie Rolls from the candy jar at work... where we most definitely didn't have a moment of silence for our late and former Governer.

They're all mourning Ray Charles by buying his CDs. (And why do I suddenly want to go to Georgia now?)

Oh my, this has been Hell Day at work. First, I couldn't get a darned thing done because the only work I had involved either (a) dealing with the federal court next door or (b) researching stuff on the internet, and the court was closed -- and about midmorning our internet connection went down.

So there I was with virtually no work to do except my Project of Last Resort, and no internet to go goof off on! Waaaah! I was about to go MAD and just jump out the window (we're on the 21st floor, so it would be a nice drop) and put myself out of my misery, when it finally came back up.

So am I working? Yeah, right. :-)

To visit me of course!

I had a thing for Big Hunks (the candy bar, never had much success with the human variety). It was a nougat-and-peanut filling removal system. There was a related bar called... Sir Look? It had a dark chocolate coating. Special Dark, mmmm. Love them a little too much.

And yes, those Dark Chocolate Milky Ways totally rock. Sometimes they're in the candy machine at work, even.

As for the Big Event of the Day, we didn't observe it or anything, which was a relief. Observances here tend to be sorta tacky, and often feature decor by Chez Walmart.

Yes, I am a little scared jennblevins. I actually asked around my office this morning and sure enough, 3 people remember this fad. Ewww

europa1057 your Hershey Special Dark story created a hilarious visual.

I pretty much can’t stand milk chocolate – the darker the better to me. That’s why I hardly ever buy chocolate candy in regular stores, I have to go the fancy specialty stores to get what I want. I’m not a candy snob, really I’m not. I won’t say that I never eat Almond Joy bars, just that they’d be 1000x better if they were made with extra dark chocolate.
I also love chick-o-stix (like a Butterfinger with coconut instead of chocolate) and most toffee candy. As a child I loved Abba-Zabba bars which were these vanilla taffy planks with peanut butter nougat filling. Now I wouldn’t touch that stuff.

Finally a chance to check in after a day of memorial hiking with folks from the Air Force Academy. Perfect hiking weather here in Colorado, and lots of folks apparently decided to take advantage of it. Hey, a three-day weekend is never wasted!

Funny chocolate story from my mother:

*names are withheld to protect whoever this idiot was

It's the mid-1950's and a pre-teen youth goes to retrieve the family mail. Inside, the pre-teen youth discovers a sample pack of what appears to be delicious chocolate candy! The pre-teen youth is overcome with curiosity (and hunger), and proceeds to eat the yummy free candy that the chocolate fairy delivered.

It was divine, in the mind of this pre-teen youth. In fact, so divine that one small sample was quickly not enough. But nevermind the concept of going to a store to buy more of this divine chocolate, this pre-teen youth ponders the possibility that the next door neighbor might have also been blessed by the chocolate delivery-angel. Sure enough, they had been. And the neighbor next to them, and the one next to them, and pretty much the whole darn town.

So, this pre-teen youth had struck it rich with chocolate goodness. About an hour later and 25 free samples later, the pre-teen youth headed home with dinner spoiled. About an hour after that, the sickness set in. The free chocolate candy was working its magic. And the pre-teen youth spent the evening in the bathroom.

You see, the free sample of chocolate candy was a fine new product called Ex-Lax Chocolate Chews.

You know, you could see that train wreck (for lack of a more accurate term, or perhaps in spite of one) coming, but it still isn't any less funny! Hee, Ex-Lax Chocolate Chews! Just please don't tell us that this was your mother. If it was her younger brother, then of course it's always funny, though -- what a great blackmail story! Hee!

Not quite sure who the exact culprit is, but it very well could have been my mother herself.

She's not one to admit to doing anything remotely stupid, but she'd be the first to say, "I have this friend who..."

I hate chocolate.

No really. Any sort of chocolate candy or ice cream makes me recoil in horror. I do like chocolate cake though (what can I say, I'm weird).

For years, my friends and family have accused me of being a communist because of it.

You and my former boss. She also hates chocolate in any form. Although at least she's more consistent than you and hates chocolate cake, too.

You people are weird.

I always tried to argue that it just meant more chocolate for everybody else, but they still gave me suspicious looks.

I agree that I'm weird, but for much better reasons than my hatred of chocolate.

If you weren't weird, would you be hanging out here?

Thus speaketh the pot.

sparky1, How can you?!
Just kidding.
There's nothing wrong with hating chocolate.
Oh, who am I kidding - it's just plain weird.
I actually had this discussion the other day with a fellow co-worker.
He, too, does not care much for chocolate. I was horrified to hear that, begin the chocolate-fanatic I am. He simply said he doesn't really like sweets in general, another puzzling notion.
To get to the point, he was headed the Belgium the following day. Now, whenever someone we know goes to Belgium we ask him to bring back a pound of Godiva Milk Chocalate Hearts. It's a family tradition dating back to the late '80s when my father used to travel there a lot.
He came back on friday, and I was surprised to find out he had bought a pound of Godiva hearts for us. When I came into the office this morning, the first thing he said to me was "Go check that bag on the desk over there. I went in the pouring rain to buy this damn chocolate for you!" - in a jokingly manner, of course. I was extatic. I hadn't had Godiva since buying a single heart while visiting Hartford 2 months ago.
I had a piece, and the next thing I know - He's asking for one too.
Naturally, being the kind individual I am *cough, cough* I gave him one. He seemed to be enjoying it, at which point I questioned his dislike for chocolate. Still, he "claims" not even Godiva does it for him. Yet he took another one later with a another co-worker, without my knowledge (which led me to hide the box - hey, I have to save some for home...).
Point being - no-one really "hates" chocolate. They just prefer to avoid it, since they don't care for it much.
Nontheless, Godiva's quite the exception of that rule :)

I was actually logging on to ask for some assistance. Since this basicallly is a travel forum (well, kind of...) I'd like to ask for names of some good and rather-cheap hotels in London.
I'm planning on arriving on July 12th and leaving on the 20th (will sadly miss an episode of TAR and a week and a half's worth of post, sadly).
If anyone knows of decent hotels in good areas, please let me know and I'll check them out.

Shall be heading over to the kitchen to have another lovely heart.
I'm telling you, you can't say you hate chocolate until you've had Godiva.
It's just.that.good.

EvilWillow, I had a pretty good booking experience on my recent trip by using a website called LondonTown. It's easy to compare prices and check for different locations, and they also add links for booking activities and shows (though it may be cheaper to book on your own).

The actual hotel we stayed in wasn't as charming as it looked on the website when we actually got there - we didn't have a direct-dial phone in the room, which turned out to be a pain when we wanted to meet up with friends. However, it was clean and a great value, though a little lacking in the "warmly personal service" department.

I'd use the website again for another trip, but pay more attention to things I take for granted, like phones that aren't just glorified intercoms and rooms big enough to open the bathroom door if the suitcases aren't in the closet.

Oh, EvilWillow, if you want Godiva chocolate, I can tell you where to go for Godiva chocolate. At $6 a pound.

In Aiken, South Carolina, there's a Pepperidge Farm warehouse where every Saturday morning for one hour they open the doors to sell bags of Godiva chocolates that aren't perfectly formed (i.e. double seashells that the two halves aren't quite lined up right, broken pieces, etc.) for $6 a pound. No limit on quantity, but you have to be there when the doors open at 8:30 if you want to get any.

When we lived 20 miles down the road in Augusta, Georgia, we'd go over there every few months and buy a bag or three of whatever they had and keep it in the freezer until I was ready for it. I actually still managed to ration myself to only 2-3 pieces a day, but oh my, I would kill to go back there. Question is, is it worth the 1,000 mile drive?

Actually, yes, I think it is!

Red Targetter, thanks for your helpfull advice. It really is a good site, in the money-saving department anyway. Most of the hotels there are still a bit pricey (sp?) for me, but I did find one interesting one. The only problem is that it's an apartment hotel - so while it has an equipt kitchen, it's not cleaned daily. And I don't think I want to mess around and clean up the room while "vacationing".
I have some other alternatives which I found on other sites, but I found mixed-feelings reviews regarding them.
I'll put off my booking for a few more days, until we get a reply from my friend's travel agent with a list of decent hotels. Also, I heard there's a special travel agency which specializes in London hotels in my area. Maybe I'll check that out as well.
Thanks for your advice, though.


Mama Tiger, that's unbelievable! If I only lived in the US... sigh.
A normal single piece costs almost $1! I don't even know how much the pound we got in Belgium cost - but I'm sure it's more than $30...
As a matter of fact, the only Godiva shop in Israel closed last month. I can't even get it anymore, not to mention at a decent price.
I'm gonna be chocolate-less forever. :(
Ohh, and by the way - Half of the pound is gone already. I don't see it lasting long enough in the box to see my father's mouth this weekend upon his return.
Poor guy... stuck in India, the land of hunger, poverty and sad eliminations.

ETA: damn plurals!

I had an awful day today and I just have to share. Let me give you all some advice.....never touch your lawnmower's engine after its been running. I have 1st and 2nd degree burns on my fingertips. It hurts!!!!!! My friend came and drove me to the urgent care and they gave me great pain killers! ooooooh! I'm loopy!!!

labral, that's why it sometimes pays to let professionals do it.

I've often told friends over the years how truly intelligent (as in learning and understanding conversational language) the schnauzers are that I've had. It's not just that the breed has been ranked in the top five of all canine breeds in intelligence, it's what I've observe them do. When you're forced to spell out words so they don't respond, and when they know the difference, when you say their name, between addressing them directly or talking about them, there's been no question in my mind it is like having kids around in all sorts of ways.

Then I read this article on Yahoo this weekend which seems to scientifically support what I have long suspected.

I heard about that article. I know that dogs can be very intelligent. I knew a black lab guide dog named Wayne, the most brilliant dog I ever met, who I swear figured out that his human was blind and he really was her eyes, after he walked her under an open stairwell and she nearly knocked herself out. He was so upset at how badly she was hurt, and the light bulb really went off in his head. He really had powers of independent thought superior to some humans I've known.

I do not, however, include my golden retriever in the ranks of intelligent dogs. Sweet, check. Lovable beyond belief, check. Dumber than a box of rocks, triple check!

Poor labral! Enjoy the drugs and be thankful this didn't happen while you were writing papers and taking tests.

TheSchnauzers, I had some friends (they moved, hence the past tense) who got a mutt at the pound. They bought her all these stuffed toys and taught her the names. So she'd bring the bear, the bunny, the cat, etc. when asked. Then my friends started a business in which most of their employees were Spanish-speaking, so they learned Spanish themselves. And they taught the dog the Spanish words for her toys. So they'd ask for the cat or el gato (sp?), and the dog would bring it. I've never doubted the intelligence of dogs -- they're wondrous animals! I just don't have the temperament to be a goddess in the way dogs demand of their masters. Cats demand a lot less of their goddesses, which is one of the reasons I have two of them.

We went on that really strenuous hike again today (the Ray Charles Memorial Hike) and added .8 mile, for a total hike of 4.5 miles (I think -- it might have been more). The added section was very, very steep. And my stamina and aerobic capacity were far better today than they've been before, ever. So next time we're adding 5.8 miles, because there's another section we want to do, making a total length of 10.3 miles (at least). That will be longer than the Grand Canyon hike we've planned. I'm turning into a friggin' jock.