It’s funny that I stopped blogging right before we finished the 100 Peaks Challenge. You’d think I would have powered through to the end. To be clear, I DID power through to the end of doing the challenge – just not blogging the challenge. I always intended to – and even indicated I would do so on my very brief Facebook post referencing that we’d finished the challenge – but it did not happen. I switched roles at work in December, and things just got crazy.

Fast forward to now. My mom had knee replacement surgery planned, and I had decided to fly back east to help out with the post-op. I arrived in Rhode Island on Wednesday, the day of her surgery. Dad and I went to dinner after my flight landed, drove home, and went to bed. The next day, before we picked Mom up, she reminded Dad that she’d had a gift for me that he was supposed to put on my bed, and had forgotten. So, on the kitchen counter I found a scrapbook she had made for me documenting my 100 Peaks Challenge! How amazing!! The first page of the book is a letter from her to me, explaining that “creating this album helped me become part of your wonderful experience.”

As I paged through the book though, I got to the end and realized she had the last three peaks wrong. She had listed Point Loma correctly, as number 97. But for 98, 99, and 100, she hadn’t known what to do… since I’d never gotten around to blogging those! So she guessed at it and instead included some re-hikes that I’d done and blogged about. I looked back at my blog and my Facebook page and realized that although I did tell the world I’d finished, that was it. I had never actually posted any details or info about our grand finale.

As I type, I am sitting in Foster, RI, at my parents’ house. I’m here to help my mom with her recovery, and so far it’s been really rewarding. My mom is doing absolutely fantastic – recovering well, in great spirits and with a great attitude. Her bum knee had taken her from climbing Moro Rock in 2018 and the Bunker Hill Monument in 2019, to the freakin’ couch. Here we are three days after surgery and she is already hobbling around the house better than she was before surgery, and we have high hopes that this procedure gets her back to her old self. I’m so grateful that despite her pain last year she found a way to connect with me and my challenge. I figure it’s the least I can do to finally write up my last three peaks! Here’s to you, Mom!