The fourth of July holiday brings to mind fireworks, family, parties, lawn chairs and big blankets, pools and beaches, BBQ’s, apple pie and ice cream, soda and beer, and when I was a kid, lightening bugs. Living with Type 1 Diabetes can make these kinds of holidays difficult. I want to enjoy myself and eat everything everybody else is eating, but I know my blood sugar will spike. So what do I do?

I decided to skip the BBQ this year and opted to go hiking with some good friends instead. My husband and I went to Pasadena to hike the Echo Mountain trail up to the San Merrill Observatory. Up there we were able to see at least 50 fireworks shows from all over Los Angeles. It was fascinating. The Rose Bowl show was by far the biggest and most impressive, but the view was incredible and we could see little clusters everywhere. About 15 of us made it up to the Observatory. There had to have been close to 1,000 people at the Hotel ruins just below our secluded spot. We brought up water, wine and iced tea, crackers, jerky, a veggie platter, fruit, rice crispy ‘cookies’, salami, olives, cheese, veggie root chips and popcorn. My blood sugar still went up, but the hike helped balance everything out and corrections throughout kept my sugar from going over 200. Here’s a great shot of about half of our spread!

Hiking down at the end of the night was my favorite part. There were probably 1,000 people with flashlights and headlamps all walking down the trail one behind the other. You could see the trail illuminated the entire way down. It was magical. Happy fourth of July! I’m looking forward to next years hike 🙂

 << start of the hike   end of the hike >>