Blog #8 "Off to Camp” or “The Importance of Travel”

Well, my Hannah bee is off to Sawtooth camp this week.  Her brother Ryan is excited he gets the TV all to himself!

at the Sawtooth Fish Hatchery~

 

When Hannah gets back we’ll be off on our trip to Oregon. After that, she gets a week at home and then she’s on the road to Grandma’s for a week or two. She’s a busy girl.  School starts August 19, so she doesn’t have much time left to fit it all in, but it’s good for her. Travel is good for all of us actually.

Redfish Lake~

I know, you’re saying, “it’s expensive” or “I don’t have the time”, but it doesn’t have to be very far or very long to have a benefit.  Seeing new things and having new, out of the ordinary experiences energizes us.  When we’re little, everything is new and exciting to us. As we get older, we tend to fall into a rut, mostly because of our daily obligations. If we let ourselves stay in that space too long, we get tired and sometimes cynical.  We have to break out of routine every so often to keep ourselves sane.

Sawtooth Valley, Idaho~

My mom came to visit recently and we took several day trips. None of them were more than two hours away, but it was nice to get out of the house and see some new scenery for a change. I want to challenge you this summer to go somewhere you’ve never been.  Then come back and tell me how much you loved it because I know you will ;)

Climbing the Fiction Mountain

A little further along the trail, in a thicket of evergreens so big you couldn’t put your arms all the way around them, we came to a monument for a group of girl scouts and their leader who were struck by lightning on that very spot years ago.  The trail grew steeper.  In places, stairs had been made with tree roots and flat stones, and my thighs began to complain.  Soon, the cave came into view, a great maw of an opening in the Earth, like a yawning mouth still high above us.  A waterfall spilled out of it from some hidden spring deep inside, cascading down the steep rocky slope.

Last fall, I went on a writing retreat to Victor, Idaho. I thought I would spend lots of time reworking and revising my book, which I did do, but I also went on a hike with an old college friend, Stephanie.  Stephanie lives in Victor, which is probably fortunate in the summer, but I don’t envy her too much in the winter. Brr!  The town lies on the Idaho side of the Grand Tetons, just west of the tourist craziness of Jackson Hole.  Anyway, I told Stephanie I would be in town and would like to take a hike somewhere.  What I imagined as a short nature hike turned into a four hour trip to Wind Cave.

It was a coolish, misty day in October before the weather turned truly winterish, but the trees had already lost their fall colors.  Stephanie drove us to the trailhead in her Subaru, several miles into the forest.  We bundled up and started up the trail.  It twisted through a grove of pines, past giant boulders worthy of a Hobbit film.  As we passed the tree line and came out into an open, rocky cirque, it began to drizzle a bit.  We took shelter in a small overhang and Stephanie showed me the swirling fossils in the gray rocks, the remnants of an ancient sea.  We shared a granola bar and talked about our children while we waited for the shower to pass.
More primitive man-made steps, only a foot square, led up to the mouth of the cave.  My fear of heights kept me from looking back.  Going up the stairs wasn’t so hard for me, but I wondered how I might get down.  A misstep here might mean a fall that went on for a long way.  Crossing the stream, the boulders icy from the freezing temperatures the night before, frightened me too.  We clambered up into the cave on slick, wet rocks and turned around to see the view of the misty valley far below us.
In fiction and in life, it’s always amazing how far you’ve come when you stop to consider it, when you look back at the obstacles you’ve overcome.  Sometimes there are set backs on your path. Sometimes there is fear, danger even. But sometimes, there is beauty and awe. And it is all worth it.