Lookout Mountain One More Time

I made another hike up Lookout Mountain today. 

Heedless of the baking sun and temperatures in the 80s, I set out on my hike.  Within a quarter mile I was sweating profusely. 

My delusions of having increased my stamina in response to the past month's hikes were quickly dashed.  I commenced panting for air from the very bottom of the mountain and didn't stop until I reached the gates of the Lookout Mountain Nature Preserve at the very top.  In the trail-side weeds and bushes small animals ran in instinctive terror from the monster that gasped and wheezed.  Their ears told them that a mastodon had returned from extinction, a mastodon with acute bronchitis.