Four Sherpas

A few Sundays back, Deborah and I laid on the floor watching TV and generally trying not to move. It was our chance to be ONE together.

Of course there's always an occasional, "Stop it right now!," mixed in and directed at the kids.

Anyway, we watch 5 episodes of "Everest - Beyond the Limit" and one episode of "Disaster on K2" or something like that. It started a whole mountaineering fascination around our house.

First and foremost, we both agreed that if we see Everest and/or K2 at 28 or 29,000 feet, we will be in an airplane. Call us wimps, but "dying to get there" is only an expression in this household.

Reading about high-altitude mountaineering on the other hand is absolutely allowed. So I read Into Thin Air, No Way Down, and One Mountain Thousand Summits. Deborah had already read Into Thin Air, but she did buy and read Touching The Void and Regions of the Heart. Deborah is a prolific reader. At any one time, she is reading 4 or 5 works of nonfiction, and our house is a regular stop for UPS to deliver books from Amazon.com. But I digress...

Today, Deborah's watching a show about a couple that managed to get off a trail and lost in the wilderness for 4 days before being rescued, and we started talking about our goal of climbing a 14er. I assured Deborah that we won't get lost on the trail and we will be safe.

She said, "Damn right we won't. We're going to have 4 sherpas carrying maps, cell phones, gps devices, homing beacons, gallons of water, food, medicine, cameras, and Charmin Ultra Soft toilet paper."