I am an introvert. And the past few months have only intensified my desire to be alone, in my bubble, doing my thing.
I've also picked up a new hobby--hiking. Turns out hiking is perfect for an introvert because that's what other introverts do so if I happen along someone on a trail, we wave, maybe have a short conversation and move on.
Also hiking, just feels good. Usually the phone reception is poor so that little stressor is gone. The air is fresh. The nature is perfect.
Two weeks ago, Greg and I chaperoned the 4th level hike for Girls' Camp. It was an 8-mile over-night hike on the Appalachian Trail. It was perfect. Well the trail, not the girls. You know there are always those 2 girls that just should not have been on the hike. We ended up being spread out over about a mile worth of trail because we had two girls who had never hiked before and over-packed their packs. Greg ended up doing close to 12 miles from doubling back so much looking for those of use prodding the stragglers along.
Add to that, about half way through the hike we got hit by a server thunderstorm that hung around for hours--they usually blow through in 30 minutes or so. By the time we got to our campsite, it was a river, so we had to do an extra mile to get to the nearest town where we rented platform tents to get out of the rain. We then rustled up enough quarters to dry some of the girls' sleeping bags, which were literally dripping wet. My stuff was all day because I covered my pack with a trash bag when I heard thunder and Greg had a high-end pack with a rain cover so his stuff was dry too.
Greg and I volunteered to go again next year, only next year we'll do mandatory bag checks for those girls who feel like they need to bring everything and bring our HAM radios so Greg doesn't have to double back so much. Not sure why we didn't think to bring them the first time, but whatever.
One more quick story about the hike: we were nearing the end, I was in the back with the other female leader and the one girl who couldn't walk more than 20 steps at a time. It was getting dark; we were soaked through; and we were ready to be done. The other leader sent me ahead to the campsite to help with the other girls and also allow her husband to hike back to her to get this girl's pack to help her finish the hike. I started off and realized shortly that while the trail was well-marked, the camp sites were not. I could easily walk right past it. So, being at Girls' Camp, I did the camp thing and prayed--don't let me get lost. I decided to set the timer on my phone for 5 minutes. If in 5 minutes I had not found the camp site I would turn around and re-search the area I'd already passed for the camp site. I took out my phone and took it out of airplane mode so that if I did get lost, at least my phone would be sending a signal. Turns out at that exact spot I had just enough signal to call Greg who was at the camp site. I didn't get through but was hoping he'd see my missed call and come looking for me. He did. He even called back but by then I didn't have signal again. But guess who I happened along the trail just as the 5 minute time on my phone went off? Yep, you guessed it. Greg. He had also realized that with the rain and blah blah blah any girls coming behind him would not be able to find the camp site so he came back up looking for us. Prayer answered.
Other observations while hiking:
1. The Lord works in small and simple ways in the same way he asks us to do same and simple things. (Hiking allows for lots of time to ponder).
2. At one point I was running, literally running, down the trail with my full pack trying to catch up to a group of girls and realized that I can't possibly be as sick as I want to believe if I've running with a full pack on a mountain in a thunder storm. (Something about feeling totally fine one morning and ending the day in the ICU really messes with your feeling of well-being. I am fine; I just have remind myself that I am so don't worry Mom).
3. There's a reason why God is in the mountains in the scriptures and not at the beach.
And now pictures. I didn't take very many because of the rain storm--I didn't want to get my phone wet and ruin it, which is exactly what Greg did.
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| One of my all-time favorite Young Women. I gave her lots of bad advice while hiking. |
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| The approaching storm |
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