The Everglades

I spent last week in the Florida Everglades to attend a program planning retreat for NC Outward Bound School. We got a lot of good work done and all 10 of us whom attended now have long to-do lists of action items to follow-up on. While the purpose of the week was to work in a team and address program needs for this season and long term, we did take some time to get outside and play.

We went on a swamp hike, which was a first for me. I had no idea what to expect, however, found my self surprised that we ended up being off-trail the entire time. Well our objective was to begin off-trail and then find a "boardwalk" in the swamp which would take us back to the van. We were out there for  about 4 hours and we never found the boardwalk. Some highlights: finding the Apple Snail shells and bromyliads, and swimming with alligators. That's right swimming with alligators - because we could not find the boardwalk, we had to swim the canal to get out of the swamp and back to the van.

Enter the swamp hike

The Outward Bound base in the Everglades

As I was gone for a week I missed my Crossfit classes, I decided to attempt some workouts on my own while I was in the Everglades. I ended up getting 2 workouts in. The first was brutal - not so much because of the workout but because of the mosquitos and no-seeums that chowed on me for the 10 minutes while I was outside doing the workout. I did have a great view though overlooking the dock and river during sunset at the Outward Bound basecamp where the retreat was held. The second workout, early one morning went much better - the morning temperatures were cool enough to make the bugs scare. For these workouts I brought a jump rope with me and 1 kettlebell - it worked well, however, it was hard to motivate and time myself. I missed my fellow Crossfitters from the 7am class at CFA. Looking forward to getting back to it!