Hi! Welcome to my blog, my first blog!

Here I am, Kim Henderson. I’m a 54 year old mom of 2 adult kids, Kelsey & Ross and Kelsey blessed me with the best grandson in the world, 8 year old Sean! I’ve been divorced since 2010, ending a 25+ year marriage. A life changing event in ways I never imagined, both good and bad! I’m a library clerk at an elementary school. This coming school year will be the beginning of my 20th school year working in the library! I absolutely LOVE my job! This blog is supposed to be about hiking but my other passion is reading/books. I’ll probably slip in book and author suggestions from time to time….no, I will do that! I’ve read several great books about hiking that I will share as I learn more about blogging!

What does Raisin’ Cane mean? It has a lot to do with the good and bad divorce after effects. I now walk with a cane most of the time. I found this really cool antique wooden cane when Russ (my long time partner in adventure) and I were at an antique store. My balance was really bad that day and I almost fell a couple of times walking through the store. I had been thinking about getting a cane and blinging it up so I didn’t look quite so old ladyish! I found the perfect one at the antique store and it was only $6! I tend to name inanimate objects and with the help of my best friend Crystal, we came up with the name Raisin’ Cane. No bling, by the way!

The good? Crystal! My best friend from Jr high until we graduated. We eventually drifted apart as married life and kids took us down different paths. We’d hook up for lunch occasionally through another school friend but when my world fell apart, Crystal was there. Our friendship picked back up like it hadn’t missed a day! She’s still my best friend!! And she introduced me to Russ (good) my partner in adventure. You’ll meet him later.  There are so many more goods…I’ll get to them.

Crystal and I at a high school football game, around 1979

Crystal and I at a concert, 2016

Crystal and I in a photo booth! Jr High, mid ’70’s

Crystal and I at our 30th class reunion, 2010

The bad? So many negative things have happened to me in the past 7 years, I wonder how many mirrors I’ve broken! Related to Raisin’ Cane…in 2013 I fell down icy stairs outside at church and broke my right ankle and heel and split a tendon (a piece of bone was poking into the tendon & it continued to split as I walked in the air cast). Finally had surgery to repair the tendon and remove the bone point but ended up with a botched surgery. Months later another surgery by a different surgeon trying to repair the damage was largely unsuccessful and I now have a severed nerve…OUCH! I can’t feel a large part of my foot, but it hurts like heck 24/7. Then in October 2015 I knocked a crank shaft over onto the toes of my left foot! OMG OUCH! Crushed my first 3 toes! They haven’t healed properly and my doctor wanted to remove part of my big toe…NO WAY! Then on my birthday in July 2016 I knocked a tub of margarine out of the fridge onto my big toe…broke it in 4 places! Doc wanted to do the surgery again! NOPE! I am scared to death to have any kind of surgery on my feet again but I’m in pain 24/7, take pain meds and nerve blockers (yucky side effects) and my balance is crap. That’s why I have Raisin’!

As you might imagine, having both feet injured and being in pain for over 4 years, I was turning into a bit of a couch potato. Actually several months before I crushed my toes, my girlfriend and I started going to this new outdoor exercise park up the street and going to yoga (a first for me) with my daughter. It was wonderful. First time in years I was exercising regularly. I was loosing weight and feeling better than I had in a long time. Then the crankshaft incident! One of my first thoughts as I stood there looking at my bloody crushed toes was “I won’t be able to go to yoga or workout tonight”, then I cried!

I always read outdoor adventure survival type books, books that are set in the mountains. My favorite place in the world is the mountains of Colorado. My last vacation to Colorado with my friend Linda was a great adventure. We hiked and explored, stayed in a cabin in the mountains with a stream right out the back door…it was heaven on earth! 2 days after I came home, my husband told me he was leaving me for his best friend’s ex-wife. I just wanted to run back to that little cabin and never come back! But I had to stay. I had a grand baby coming and my son was still healing from severe burns and skin graft surgery. But that longing for the mountains, the smell of the pine trees, hasn’t left me.

Last year my dad, my rock, my strong, always there with every answer dad, was diagnosed with vascular dementia. I was devastated, am devastated. I needed a physical outlet for the pain in my heart. My friend Scott had started hiking and posting pictures on Facebook of the beautiful places to hike here in Missouri and I decided that’s what I have to do! I’m going to hike away the pain, if just for a few hours at a time. But what about my feet? They hurt all the time anyway, it can’t be any worse than going to the grocery store or the mall, right? So my first hike was 1.8 miles on a paved trail, which I found I don’t like, and it took Russ and I about 3 hours! But I did it and it was fun and I didn’t think about sad things or the pain in my feet! I didn’t even own hiking boots then. I caught the hiking bug!