I have this image of myself as being much stronger than I really am.  For whatever reason, I've always wanted to appear as though I'm really tough--even though I can't lift 50 pounds.  When I was in college, a group of friends and I went on this canoe trip.  60 miles canoeing down the Green River.  They warned me it would be hard, but I just laughed-60 miles on a river?  How hard could that be?  Yeah, so it didn't matter who I was with, my canoe was always in last place.  And by the last day no one wanted to be my canoe buddy because I was such a wimp about it and eventually just stopped paddling all together.  

Some people in our ward take this trip down the Grand Canyon every year.  18 miles.  In one day.  All the way down to the bottom and then straight back up to the top.   My response:  "Wahoo! Sounds like fun!"  See how happy I was before we started:

Here's the whole group.  The leader, Ed, made us all hats that said "Club Ed" on them.  They were awesome:

One hour into the hike and my legs started shaking.  I kept on twisting my ankles, I packed waaay too much stuff in my camelback, and lets face it, I'm just a wimp.  I was pretty much done after the first hour.  And this was all on the downhill part, which was supposed to be easier. Here's how sad I was after twisting my akle for the 50th time: 

(I can't figure out how to rotate this picture, so you're going to have to turn your head)

When we got down to the campground at the bottom, we saw everyone else setting up their tents, getting ready for bed.  And we hurried and ate our hot dogs (I ate PB&J) and then packed up to go right back up the mountain.  It was basically 7 miles of stairs to the top.  My legs have never hurt so bad in my entire life.  When we finally got back to our motel at 1 am, I couldn't even lift my legs to take my shoes off.   It was about three days before I could walk without limping.   

More pics from the trip:

It was definitely pretty, but was it worth it?  Maybe, but I'll never do it again!