Pen-y-Fan or bust!

In an effort to impress our first real house guests (Travis, his cousin Carrie, and Carrie's hubby Daniel) this past weekend, we baked up a storm, made a dinner reservation at Happy Gathering (which allegedly serves the best (Chinese) food "ever"), and planned a hike -- basically, we pulled out all the stops.

Well, all was going smoothly -- Mom's Chocolate Chip Banana Bread was a big hit and Happy Gathering proved well worthy of its superfluous reviews, but then came the inclement (and not-so-surprising) Wales weather. Sunday's forecast of "sunny intervals" meant one such interval on the hour drive north to Brecon Beacons National Park and another off in the distance over a lake about three hours later. Our guests were troupers though (quite literally) and we all made the most of what had to be the foggiest and windiest trek up "the highest peak in South Britain" in the history of Augusts in Wales. Carrie and I knew we were in for it when EVERY single person we passed was decked out in full hiking gear and we looked like we were on our way to pilates. We might as well have been holding Starbucks' lattes and walking down Union Street with a puggle. But hey, if the weather had been perfect and we had been prepared, what fun would it have been?

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