Reflections

I am back to my reality of life for the week, but I had a wonderful time being surrounded by nature for 4 days.  Thursday while leaving the city and headed for the mountains, I enjoyed great conversation with my bestie Melanie and my dad about life.  Melanie was preparing to fly to Florida for a weekend getaway and I find it so interesting how this is the second time in the past few months that her and I both have weekend getaways planned at the same time.   I started camping when I was a teenager with my best friends in school, Kendra and Holly.  We would camp in the cow fields that separated my home and Kendra's home.  In my early 20's after Melanie and I first met, we started camping when we both lived in Virginia and we had such a fun time together.  So, you can imagine my excitement for Melanie and I to be able to enjoy the great outdoors again sometime in the future.

When I arrived at camp on Thursday I was exhausted.  I feel it was just as much mental exhaustion as it was physical exhaustion.  I had been meticulously preparing for my home to be sold, ensuring it looked and smelled great when potential buyers come in is my strategy.  At camp, I opened up the camper "Sunshine" (named after my Papa) and let the inside get some airflow and within an hour or less, I was taking a nap.  I napped for over an hour, and woke up in the beauty of nature, made a cup of coffee and started to prepare dinner.  I always ensure I have a ton of sweet potatoes when I camp.  You can't go hungry if you have potatoes and onions, oh, and of course my favorite..... Mike's Curry Love packs.  Curry is my "go to" food that I eat with sweet potatoes instead of rice.  After I had dinner, I took a wonderful stroll around the camp down to the river to enjoy the gorgeous view of the mountain.  There is a little bridge made from a tree that is cut in half and the river was gushing so good that the water was splashing up onto the tree bridge.  I noticed a guy in front of me standing there admiring the view so I asked if he wanted to cross the bridge with me, he of course followed.  I could somehow sense the guy was afraid to cross by himself, and it is a fun experience I wanted to share.  Once we crossed, he said he was glad he crossed the river.  I quickly found out he was visiting from Chicago, and his girlfriend was originally from Oregon.  They had visited Portland before the visit to Seattle and was telling me his view of both cities.  This is one aspect of travel that is so fun, you get to meet so many amazing and friendly people who have a thirst for learning more about the awesome planet we live on.

After the river adventure it was back to the camp to wash up and crawl into the camper for a great night of sleep.  It was awesome to wake up in the middle of the night "COLD" and have to zip myself up in my sleeping bag.  It was probably a low of 50-55 degrees during the night if I could take a good guess.  It was 85-95 during the daytime.  Last year, I camped at the mountain in late September or early October (can't remember exactly)  it was in the low 30's.  That was my first taste of camping in the cold, and I loved it.  That was the camping trip I did right after I returned from spending a month out to sea in the month of September.  I feel the years of spending locked away from nature, on the ships at sea, has made my soul yearn for that connection to nature I was so lucky to experience as a little girl living in Tennessee.  

I awoke the next day feeling recharged and renewed.  I use reflectix to darken out my camper during the day and night which allows me to sleep longer.  Friday, my friend Nick and I started with a hike from Narada Falls (in the picture) to reflection lakes.  These are lakes where you can see the reflection of Mount Rainier in them and the hike was challenging and rewarding.  I will share more about my trip in future post.