I never knew all the specific things that Brandi and Connie had talked about and agreed to but, I made up my mind that I would never ask either one of them about it either.
Brandi did say, “Connie wants me to spend the night with you all of this coming week since she has been with you all week, Ken.” I could not have been happier with the outcome of their agreement. That is as long as they were both happy with the arrangements that they had made with one another.
As it turned out they agreed that one would spend the night with me for a week and then they agreed to switch off at the end of each week. When sunup came that morning Brandi got up as she had always done for the nearly 25 years of our marriage.
She began to make breakfast for her family including one new permanent addition, Connie. When our two boys got up they came into the kitchen, hugged their sweet, loving Mother warmly and kissed her.
Then they said, “It’s so good to have you back home again, Mom. We have missed you so much when you were not here. This house never did feel the same without you here and we never want you to leave here again, Mom.”
I later told her, “Now you can see just how much you are loved and needed here in this home, Brandi. You are needed not only by me but, by your two loving sons, also, Sweetheart.”
Brandi just put her arms around me with tears in her eyes and she told me “I love you and those two boys of ours and I can’t ever leave you, our boys and this house again, Ken.” She told me how each of our boys hugged and kissed Connie just like she was their own Mother, too. She also told me how much love Connie showed each of our boys in return.
Brandi went on to say, “I’m so proud of our two boys for showing their affection for Connie and I think that Connie was really surprised and so happy to have the boys show their affection for her, too. Honey, we have raised two really good boys, actually two really good young men, and it really shows to anyone who wants to see it.”
After the weekend and our boys had gone back to school I told Brandi, “Connie and I have back packed up to a high altitude campsite where the view is spectacular during the afternoon. But we had to leave there in time to get back to the cabin before dark since we were not prepared to camp out overnight.
However, I have been up there several times and have spent the night and have seen the sundown and the sunrise. The view was even more spectacular at that time than it was during the morning or early and late afternoon before sundown.”
Connie has told me that she wants to go back up there and spend the night and I have agreed to take her up there again to spend the night with her.” Then I asked Brandi, “Do you want to go with us when we go up there and see the glorious sunset and the sunrise, too, Honey?”
Brandi responded, “Yes I do, Baby. I’m not going to back out of this one as I said I would when I came back here, Honey.”
“It is a pretty rough hiking trip but Connie made it up there and back after having been on another hike the day before. Remember that Connie is a flatlander not really acclimated to this altitude yet like you and I are with us both having lived here for years, Baby.”
Brandi responded “I still want to go with you as I’m not going to make that same mistake again of staying at home while you two go back packing up in the mountains.”
Connie came into the kitchen to the breakfast table and I asked her, “Do you still want to back pack up to the high altitude campsite and spend the night there with me and Brandi, Connie?”
Connie emphatically answered, “Yes, I do and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Well, we only have a two man tent but, both of the boys and I have slept in it before. It’ll be a little bit tight but we can manage if you want to try it.”
Both Brandi and Connie said, “Yes, we still want to make this back packing trip with you, Ken.”
“That’s great news and we’ll have to start to prepare today to leave tomorrow morning very early. “We have three back packs and three bed rolls, a two man tent, camping gear, our food, coffee, first aid kit and our cooking gear to carry.” I told the girls, I’ll take the tent, my bed roll and our food. I always make sure that I have a change of outer clothes in my back pack, too. So you two need to have a change of outer clothes, too.”
“You two will have to carry your bed rolls split the cooking gear, first aid kit and the camp ax nearly evenly among your back packs and any extra clothes that you want to take with you.” When we had our back packs loaded we put them in my 4WD camper except for the perishables we would pack in the cooler to get an early start in the morning.
I put my 12 gauge semi-auto and my extra ammo by the door so that I would not forget it in the morning. We packed some extra food and clothing and blankets to stow in the cabin if we decided to stay there over night or for two nights after our trip.
The three of us relaxed after our supper and we all went to bed early to be able to get up for an early start the next morning. Of course, Brandi insisted on making love before we went to sleep. The three of us got up about an hour and a half before daylight. We had our breakfast and left for the roughly one hour trip up the mountain to the small cabin.
When we got to the cabin it was just a little after sunup and we got our gear out of the 4WD, put our extra gear and the cooler in the cabin and shouldered our back packs. We were then ready to start up the trail. I told the girls, “You both need to stay close to me. I don’t want either of you to straggle along behind us where I can continually keep an eye on you.”