Adventure 201
She took that first big breath and then that first really big step off the porch and began her morning adventure. Today would be a good one. The sky was just waking and showing off the colors of the sun reflecting from cloud faces.
Turning the corner to pick up the main trail she walked into a bug. Now she had a dragonfly sized bug swimming around doing backstrokes in her eye. No way did it want to leave. After numerous attempts of pest removal she gave up and thought "well, if I am bear food today, it will get extra protein."
She was paying attention to everything around her this morning. Not just because she had promised but because it was important. While watching for footprints she found a line drawn in the sand from one side of the road to the other. Amused she stopped, wondering if in crossing this line she would be transported to a parallel world or a time warp or some other adventure of merit. Upon closer inspection she discovered this line was made by thousands of ants marching one by one and two by two.
She continued to stop and take photos of the ever changing hippy clouds in the sky- tie died and blotter test shaped clouds. No way will they look this awesome when downloaded but the drive to get that next great photo pushed her forward. Up the mountain she continued, step by step. Thunder rumbled in the distance. This brought smiles when she realized that she then heard turkeys gobbling at the sound that disturbed their early morning rituals.
A lack of energy this morning made the uphill walk difficult but it is only one step at a time and so she pushed herself on while cursing the bug still doing the back float and praising the Lord for the allowing her the opportunity to enjoy such a wonderful blessing as this morning was turning out to be. She wished that there was someway to transport some of her friends to this very spot with her so as she took those last uphill steps to the clearing she could watch their faces. The world opened up before her. Woods remained on her left but on the right the meadow opened up and allowed her to see for miles. Miles of forest. Miles of trees and dirt roads and sparkling streams tripping over rounded rocks. Miles of acres of hiding places and meadows for animals to live out their lives.
This was the place she took that first step off the porch to reach. How could she possible share the smells and the sounds of this moment with others? She took off her bear gun and sat to pray for some of those most important in her life when she heard crashing in the trees at the edge of her meadow. She pulled her camera from her pocket and found a sturdy stump to get a better vantage point of the area the sounds were coming from. These were pretty big sounds. She stood there posed to get that perfect picture. Her brain was sending her signals like: sounds like more then one animal, one is moving closer, damn, that one sounded like a bear ripping through a 6 foot log, but I want this to be a moose, be a moose, be a moose, wait, you are standing about moose head height. She decided she should be wearing that gun of hers and jumped down to get it back on. She waited about 15 more minutes, listening and paying attention, not just because she promised but because it was important.
Finally the sounds seemed to stop. It was time to go home. She jumped off her stump, bent down to pick up her hand weights and realized as she began to raise up that there was a 30 pound, very black, very cute, cuddly looking bear cub only about 30 yards up the trail from her. Her brain quickly made a leap back to that Velcro sound of a very long log being ripped apart and we will never know if she should have stayed to get that perfect picture or if it was a smart move on her part to exit stage right at a very fast rate of speed, looking over her shoulder in case today was that day when adventure called for taking the safety off the 20 gauge bear gun.
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