Victory was mine!

Yesterday was simply gorgeous here.  Truly a gift! We decided to take full advantage of it and make it a family fun day.  We set out on our journey and found ourselves at the bottom of what is called the Elba Fire Tower. It's a really cool little local spot.  Here is a story on the tower..not the best quality, but still gives you an idea. The first 140 some steps have names carved in them with messages.  Here's a story the newspaper did on one of them.  Pretty neat!
  
 I've lived here all my life and never been here.  Mostly because of my insane fear of heights.  But also because I used to smoke and didn't know if I could hack the climb.  Life's to short, and I don't smoke anymore, so why not give it a try?! My husband said, "if you can't go all the way, we'll turn around".  All the while knowing that if I started it, I was going to finish it.

It took me about 85 minutes to go all the way up, take in the view, and all the way back down. All 742 (or so) steps.  The biggest challenge for me was that the steps were not all uniform.  Some were taller than others, some were wider than others, and I had to continue to change how I went up.  Of course my thigh and calf were on fire, and even though it really hurts today, it was still worth every step!

My youngest patiently waiting for me to catch up.  If you look closely you can tell that you can not see the end of the steps.  This was closer to the bottom.

I was greeted with many smiles, compliments and handshakes during a relatively busy day at the tower.  It was nice, but also strange.  It was really personal for me.  Proving to myself I could do things that I didn't think I could do when I had my own 2 legs.

100 feet tall rickety tower...no thanks! But my family was brave enough!

View from the top of the tower. That's the ball field where many games are held.

Elba Church - view from the bottom of the tower

I am definitely crossing this one off the bucket list.  Thank you Lord!