I hike in what feels like a generally uphill direction. Even on my last day, the descents seem too short and too sweet to remember much of. When I began, twelve days ago, my pack weighed at least forty pounds. I was carrying seven days of food, most of which I did not eat. Two rookie mistakes. Yet, even walking in a never ending uphill direction with forty pounds on my back (lovingly nicknamed "Fang" after Hagrid's three headed dog in Harry Potter) I held up okay.
Those first few days of my trip were golden, albeit sweaty. Literally. They composed three of the four sunny days I spent on the trail. As I walked, I glowed with more than the sweat streaking down my newly rediscovered glute muscles: I glowed in the delight that I was finally fulfilling a part of my dream. The summer before I attended eighth grade, I signed up for a week of wilderness camp in the Colorado Rockies. I spent months beforehand watching shows on wilderness and survivor expeditions. I read books and blogs on backpacking and emergency preparedness in the back country. I wrote and rewrote my gear list at least twenty times. Backpacking at summer church camp was, in my twelve year old mind, the real deal. I was going to carry everything I needed with me deep into the woods and spend several nights there. I thought I was the coolest! And as I realized last week on a twenty-one mile day, that sometimes it's okay for me to still sort of think I am. During that time of discovery and exploration of what has since become my favorite hobby, I happened upon Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods. While absorbing the book in a matter of days, I fell in love. I fell in love with the idea of walking over 2000 miles with everything I needed to survive resting on my back. I fell in love with the idea of having nothing to do but walk, breathe, experience, and embrace. I fell in love the way a quirky seventh grader who knows she'll never quite fit in the materialistic and athletics centered world in which she finds herself to be (and, perhaps deep down does not want to) falls in love with a dream that may one day carry her to the people with whom she belongs: other dreamers, misfits, and folks who would rather count miles than baskets. I fell in love with the woman I am growing up to become. It was in this spirit that my smile emanated with happiness those first few days. After all that time dreaming, wishing, and waiting to grow up and follow my dreams, I was finally there, walking in the sunshine, singing beneath the trees. As the week progressed the weather did not hold and, after a bad experience or two about which I will not write at this time, my spirits did not either. But as I later reminded myself underneath the sun on a twenty one mile day: even though the trip was not indeed perfect, I still have every right to be proud of myself for taking the chance to follow my dreams. Despite all that had happened at the end of Service Adventure and the beginning of college, I still have the guts to take chances. And in the same way that my dorky thirteen year old self beamed at the fact that she was going backpacking and not to basketball camp, it's okay to sometimes think I'm pretty cool.
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Elizabeth SchragAdventurer. Biblical and Theological Studies major. Borderline Vegan. Rebel with a cause. Archives
March 2017
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