Adventure Hike

Today I went for an adventure hike with my friend, Melissa.  I call it an adventure hike because you start out with just an idea of how the day will go, and end up far from that.  You take risks and get lost and for a second are not quite sure you know the way back.  Then you look at your friend picking up a snake "to save it from being stepped on" and you know you are in good hands. 

I expressed my fears of not being totally sure where our car was to Melissa.  She replied by telling me she was not worried at all.  It was nice out and besides there are no bears here.  Well, there might be bears here, she backtracked.  I think you are supposed to curl up into the fetal position and not move, she explained.  But I wouldn't do that, her eyes were big, I would run like hell.

Great.  What would I do!?

I soon forgot to worry about bears because we came across a beautiful wood bridge that looked like it went on forever.  We seemed to be in the middle of a forgotten forest.  Not one had passed us in over an hour.  Above us were gorgeous blue skies with streams of sunshine being filtered by yellow, red and orange leaves.  The sun came through the protective trees just enough to make us warm on our cool fall day. 

Our feet were crunching over leaves and sticks and stones as we came up to our bridge, our yellow brick road to home, or wherever it was we wanted to go.  We crossed the bridge despite the fact that every five or six planks we moved over, one was broken in half by water damage.  It was especially thrilling when a plank actually cracked underneath my foot.  After what seemed like a very long journey of praying that each piece of wood stay whole, we got to the end.  Looking around we realized we were right back where we had started our hike.  It was perfect.

On the way back to the car, a hawk soared maybe 10 feet above our heads.  It was kind of incredible.

Thanks, Melissa.