So, I woke up with a case of the “blahs” yesterday morning. In fact, I’ve had a general feeling of ill health a lot lately. After a lot of thought, I developed my own treatment plan. I’ve started telling myself, “There are people, including kids, out there with cancer. They are people out there living with physical pain every day. Our soldiers are at war and their spouses are raising kids on their own. I’m sorry, but you are just NOT that pitiful. Quit belly aching and enjoy the life that God gave you.”
After my little lecture to myself, I decided that Will and I needed to get out of the house and go on a hike. There is a trail about 30 minutes from our house. It is 3 miles round trip and it is rated as moderately difficult. It takes two hours to complete. But, it is so worth the workout, because there is a beautiful 75 foot waterfall at the end of the trail. Once you reach it, you get to spend time just being in awe of it.
Off we went, and it was so great hiking through those woods, listening to all the sounds of nature. Sometimes the trail was very narrow and other times it opened up into large, wide open spaces of just beautiful woods.
But, I am a scaredy cat sometimes…ok, most of the time. If I heard too much rattling, I automatically assumed it was a bear. And, I asked Will more than once what he thought the chances were of us being kidnapped by the chainsaw massacre since we were so far out in the woods…seemingly alone. I can’t help it!
You never quite know when you will run into someone out there because the woods are thick. We were walking along and suddenly a couple appeared out of nowhere. I gasped and said, “You scared me! I thought you were a bear!” They just kind of laughed a little and then when we got 100 feet or so away from them, I heard them laughing very loudly. I’m glad I could make their day. There ARE bears in these parts, I tell ya!
We hiked and tripped several times and discussed various things along the way, such as bears, childhood memories, chainsaw massacres, ticks, dinner plans, spiders, the Blair Witch Project (hey Kelli), the weather, snakes, etc.
We finally reached the falls, and oh boy, it was just what my “blah” mood needed to see. You could almost feel God there in our presence saying, “See what I made for you.” I shut my eyes and just listened to that falling water…bliss.
Oh wait…forgot to mention that we had a run in with a wild animal on those rocks before we climbed them. When we first arrived at the falls, we saw an animal sitting on the rocks. It was gray, with a touch of brown. We couldn’t tell what it was but it looked like it was sleeping. We snuck quietly closer and closer to it. We tried to zoom in on it with our camera to figure out what it was. We couldn’t tell, but it wasn’t moving so we kept slowly approaching it. We got pretty close to it and all of a sudden figured out that it was a big, scary……ROCK! We felt like the stooges that we were, for sure. It did look like some crazy animal from a distance…seriously. Just the thought of us sneaking up on that odd shaped rock, all Elmer Fudd like, totally cracks me up.
We stayed at the bottom of the falls for a little while and had a little snack. We enjoyed the experience very much. Of course, Will had to bring up the bears again and the fact that they were probably going to smell our food. It was time to head out.
About 10 minutes into our hike back, a dog appeared out of nowhere and started running toward us. We didn’t know if this was a wild dog or what. It was large, ugly, and was only using 3 of its legs. The 4th one was kind of curled up under it and was obviously hurt or deformed. But, it was approaching us fast. It saw us and ran the other direction so we thought it was more scared of us than we were of it. But, it suddenly came running back.
I came up with a quick plan. Through clenched teeth, I said, “Don’t panic. Reach into the bag and get the lemon cookies that I put in there. Throw them at him and he will eat those instead of us.” I was very serious about this plan that I had formulated and I did not think Will was acting fast enough. The dog was right on top of us at this point and I was about to panic. I was in the process of trying to rip the backpack off Will’s back to get the cookies when two people popped up and I knew right away it was their family dog. They said that they were sorry it scared us and its leg had been deformed since it was a puppy and it was just an old dog.
We had a pretty good laugh on the way back about my weapon of choice….lemon cookies. Lesson learned…when you are about to be attacked in the middle of the woods, all alone, by a scary wild animal, make sure you have more than two lemon cookies to protect yourself.
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3 comments:
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! :)
OK...Now I want to come up and take that hike with you--not because of the wild animals or anything though! It sounds like a lot of fun.
This kind of reminds me of when I was around seven years old and my family moved from the city to the country. My two older brothers, who think they are so wise, told us younger kids that when you walked under a canopy of trees cover the road to run fast to the other side. Their reason? Panthers. Panthers lurked in those canopies and if you didn't run they would jump on top of you, drag you down to the river, eat your heart out and then cover you up with mud, never to be found. Well, going down to my grandmother's house (about a 1/4 mile from our house), you guessed it, a canopy of trees covered the road. To this day, over 40 years later, I still fight the urge to run screaming, "There ain't no panther, there ain't no panther!", every time I pass under a canopy of trees!
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