Perfection

For me, Friday was a perfect day. It was my Friday off, and I had plans to meet my best friend from high school, Amy, at Newport on the Levee. Amy lives in Dayton, so Northern Kentucky is a pretty good halfway point for us to meet. I LOVE Amy. Amy totally gets me. We always joke that we share a brain and that we are basically the same person. I love that I can tell her absolutely anything and she totally understands. We try to talk about once a week over the phone, and we see each other in person way too little. But today, the stars aligned and we made it happen, and it was glorious.

The day started off a little rough with Amy getting stuck in traffic and then a little lost on her way. But her being late gave me some time to drive the course of the half marathon that I am going to be running in a month so I have somewhat an idea of what I am getting myself into. The Flying Pig is known for a huge hill that you have to run up. This is what I am most nervous about and was looking forward to driving to see what I was up against. As I got close to the top of the hill, I rounded a curve and literally was breathtaken by a beautiful park with a whole area full of blooming magnolia trees. It was quite possibly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.  I made a mental note that I would need to stop back there. I drove the rest of the course, and then headed to the levee.

I met Amy at the levee - after she got slightly detoured in downtown Cincinnati, and we ate lunch at Brio, which I love. We ate outside because it was so beautiful. We sat and talked and ate good food, and it was glorious. It was so good to sit and catch up face to face and to have all the time in the world. When we finished lunch we decided to cross the Ohio River on the purple people bridge. From the bridge you can see the hill that I am going to have to run up for the half marathon. I told her that I drove up it and how beautiful it was at the top. Then I decided that since we had time we were going to try to find it. On foot.

Amy is such a good sport and puts up with my craziness and we start walking. And we walk for a long time. And I am not 100% sure where I am going. But amazingly, after A LOT of walking and a few lucky turns, we find ourselves at the road that I drove up that leads to the beautiful park. So we keep walking. Then Amy spots some steps that I go straight up the hill instead of more around it, which is what the road is doing. Se we decide to give the steps a shot. And there are A LOT of steps. A lot. But we finally make it up the steps, and I'm not sure exactly where we are but I know that beautiful park has to be close by, and I have a pretty decent sense of direction so we head in the direction that I think the park is and continue walking.

Well, as we are walking we begin to see a beautiful pool with  a fountain. And I remember driving by it earlier as I was driving the course. So I knew we were getting close. We headed down to the pool and that itself was gorgeous. (I found out it is called mirror lake.) The sun was shining and we were hot from all the walking, so we took our shoes off and stuck our feet in and enjoyed the beautiful day. From where we were sitting as we looked off in the distance everything dropped off and you could see across the river and it was so pretty. At this point I was kicking myself for not having my camera. I took a picture with my phone, but cannot figure out how to retrieve it from the phone and put it on the computer. Here is a picture I stole from google.

After sitting by the fountain and dipping out feet we decided to continue exploring, as by that time I know that all we had to do was follow a little trail around a bend and we would be to the beautiful magnolia garden. We headed that direction and were walking and talking and as soon as we began to see the magnolia trees we stopped mid sentence in awe. It was gorgeous. There are no words. And unfortunately no pictures. At least of my own, but here is one I stole. I still feel like it doesn't do it justice.

Seriously, no words. Everyone that was there had their fancy cameras out and were snapping pictures. It was quite possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I want to go back. Tomorrow. Or right now. And live there.

So that was our little adventure. We walked around the park. We talked. We enjoyed how beautiful everything was. And we got to walk downhill the whole way back. The day was absolutely gorgeous. We stopped at Sawyer Point on the way back, which is this awesome little park right on the river in Cincinnati and there were so many cute little families out enjoying the weather. It was such a happy day.

By the time we made it back we were spent. And then I realized that this was supposed to be my day of rest before I had to run 11 miles on Saturday. I didn't think about that when we started off on our little adventure. We'll see how that 11 miles goes. My guess is it wouldn't have felt good even I had done nothing on Friday. But I am so glad that I got to spend the day with Amy. And so glad we went on our little adventure to Eden Park. If you haven't been you HAVE to go. I am going to make it an annual thing. At least.

There is nothing I love more than being outside on a gorgeous day, enjoying the weather, and getting to spend time with a best friend. It was perfect. And it was followed by a wonderful Good Friday service at church where I was able to reflect on the sacrifice that was made so that I could have eternal life and a relationship with the amazing God who created all the beauty that I got to enjoy. Perfection.