How now brown cow... er... I mean... wow, my brain is very random today! So let's try that again....
A friend of mine that I work with started me on this about a month back or so. They work in a different office than I do, so we mostly converse via those wonderful electronic communication marvels taken so much for granted these days and otherwise known as e-mails.
We go back and forth each week, trading off on who has to choose a topic for discussion. It's often random and frequently amusing, though we've discussed serious things as well. I decided for this week at least, to share my half of the topic. I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who cares to write about this too!
This weeks topic, chosen randomly by me: Do you like ‘wildernessy’ type things and activities… or not… why, and include at least two experiences! O_o wow, that sounds like an essay assignment. So feel free to critique my 'essay' xD;
~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~**~~
When I was a child, I loved to be outdoors. My grandparents lived in a green dome house by a lake, with a small pond on their property and a quarter acre of woods literally surrounding the house. I remember their driveway was very long, and almost like a tunnel in the trees leading to their house. All of my school vacations as a child were spent there, including the three months of summer. When I was there, shoes only adorned my feet if we were going on a hike, or going somewhere in the large blue suburban that my grandmother drove.
A favorite thing was to sneak out of the house via the back door in the middle of the night and go tip-toeing down the path to the beach and the pond, or around the back of the house to watch the pigeons and horses. In the daytime, we’d ride the horses, take the dog out in the woods, or set up elaborate storyline games with barbies, spanning generations of characters in the game, and using the entire beach or sometimes a large clearing in the woods as our set-up for the game.
My grandfather back then used to run a side-business, taking groups of people on week long hikes up in the mountains. I wasn’t considered old enough to go, but I always wanted to. My consolation was the day hikes we’d take up Bear Mountain to pick blueberries, and walking through the forest around the dome in the rain with no umbrella, soaking up the silence underneath the drip drop of the rainfall and delighting in the fresh earthy smell brought out by the saturated greenery. It was intoxicating.
I remember one of my favorite experiences with my husband, before we got married, was when he took me to Yosemite and we took a short hike to the top of Vernon falls. The stream was rather low at the time, exposing a lot of the riverbed that would normally be underwater. Feeling adventurous, we clambered among the rocks at the side of the riverbed to make our way up to the falls rather than taking the path. I found a rock nestled amongst others that was almost perfectly spherical in shape, and we collected it as a souvenir.
It was more fun discovering a route through that rocky riverbed than walking any pathway.
Unfortunately, after moving back to Alaska at the age of 18, I had precious few chances to go hiking or camping, especially since all our camping gear was lost about a year and a half after we moved. The prolonged bout of illness that I had in the winter of 2004 and spanning all the way into the spring of 2005 also made outdoor activities more of a trial, since I lost my cold weather acclimation during that long winter spent indoors trying to get and stay well.
These days, I get cold more easily and I’m probably not fit enough for a hike that lasts all day, much less one that would span several. I still love the outdoors, and try to take short hikes when I have the opportunity. I still prefer bare feet, though in the cities of California I’m usually only barefoot at home. I still love walking in the rain, and one of my very favorite scents in the world will always be the smell of a forest after a rainfall.
Community Member
These days I don't do much outside anymore. It's much too humid and I'm woefully out of shape. sad