My Weekend Adventure

This weekend, I had some most amazing adventures.   First, I went swimming in this waterfall. It was freezing cold and the power of the falls kept pushing me back. I really wanted to swim underneath the falls so that I could get behind it, but it was scary. I really wasn't sure I was going to be able to do it. I was scared. In the end, I'm glad I did. When you get behind the falls, it is a sheer sheet of water coming down in front of you and unlike any other swimming experience.  Then my friend Abi and I climbed the rocks to the side of the waterfall to make it to the top. Hooray for new experiences! 

That's us on the top left of the waterfall.

Then we came back to camp and decided to hike.  Stupidly, I suggested a long hike that was labeled with words like "difficult" and "guide required."  We were all overly confident. Really, how difficult could hiking be?

We were so happy to finally see
trail markers.

We got permission from the camp staff to take off without a guide.  Let's just say about 20 minutes in, we found out why they say guide required.  There were no trail heads on the first 3/4 of the trail, so whenever the trail forked or turned, we were at a loss.  We ended up having to call the camp office a handful of times to get directions.

About 1/4 of the way through, I started thinking back to my blog post from last month Why I Love Hiking and was writing in my head a companion piece called "Why I Hate Hiking."    First the frustration of the lack of trail heads, coupled with the intense uphill climb, the heavy amounts of cob webs and bugs and a freak storm all combined to make me a rather grumpy Jill.  On top of all that, there was no beautiful scenic lookout at which to arrive and take amazing pictures. We eventually crossed a lot of streams and my socks got wet, making for uncomfortable hiking.  

While I was utterly exhausted when we arrived back at camp, it's amazing what accomplishing something like this hike can do for your attitude.  Despite what I've just written in the above paragraph, I will look back on that hike with fond memories of my friends, beautiful woods and streams and an exciting close encounter with lightning. As they say, "it's all about the journey, not the destination." While we didn't get to a beautiful lookout, we did enjoy a delicious four hours together.  (I've been told I'm actually more entertaining when I am slightly grumpy.)

On our way home from the mountains, we took a
wrong turn and found this beautifulness. I had to share.

PS. I called and got my test results from the EEG and MRI today. Everything came back as normal.  I know nothing else until I go to my appointment next Tuesday, but it's definitely good news!