August 6, 2014

Caves and Camping

Imagine yourself in the depths of the earth sitting on the hold, hard, metal seats of a little boat. There are fourteen people on the boat with and most of them don't know how to shut their mouth for more than a few seconds at a time. However, we stop in front of "Gibraltar Rock" and the tour guide turns off the lights and for a few seconds we get to experience total darkness. The blackness feels tangible, it's so thick. And then the lights come back on and I just want to close my eyes because the darkness was so beautiful. And then... then the tour guide pulls out a Native American flute and starts to play, and for once everyone is silent and the music echoes of the cave walls and it sounds so amazing.


Definitely one of the highlights of my week long camping trip. There's just something about caves... I know they're supposed to at least be a little bit scary, but somehow the silence and darkness felt more relaxing than anything. It was also pretty amazing when my aunt and I detoured away from the trail and explored a little cave on our own. We couldn't make it very far inside before it was all water, but it was so neat to watch the walls sparkled and find a cave salamander and some crickets and lots of frogs.

Speaking of frogs... I also watched one of the other girls on the camping trip chase a frog straight into a snake's waiting mouth. So traumatizing to watch the snake gulp down the poor little frog that wouldn't have died if I hadn't seen it and pointed it out to the other girl...

Oh, and I cannot forget the biggest adventure of hitting a deer on the way down. I was in the passengers seat and got to sit and watch as my windshield suddenly turned brown for a second. Lots of damage to the driver's car, but neither of us were hurt which was definitely a blessing.

Beautiful hikes, indescribable devotions in the sunlight every morning, and breath taking stars. I even got to see a lunar eclipse. All in all a very good camping trip, even with the disappointment that came right before, when my brother wasn't allowed to fly alone from Mexico to come and spend the week with me. I really miss my family, and it's been so long since I've seen any of them. It was so hard to hear that my brother wasn't coming after weeks of looking forward to seeing him.


Unfortunately, while I did write several pages worth of words, nothing worth showing anyone. I still have all of these ideas for the upcoming Equity Blue, but something is still holding me back from writing it. Maybe it's all the uncertainties and changing aspects of my life. It's hard to write when I'll be in a different state every week for the next few weeks.

Which brings me to wonderful news- I'm going to Chicago!!! I get to spend a week up in Chicago with my boyfriend and his family and some other families that used to go to my school in Mexico. I cannot wait to see some familiar faces from Mexico and spend some time with friends. And, of course, I am excited beyond words to see my boyfriend again after months of rare Skype calls and some emails and lots of Facebook messages passed back and forth as I moved from country to country. Five more days until I get to see him in person!! I cannot wait!

So not much happening in the pages for me right now, but a lot of adventure outside of them.

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