Our First Backpacking Trip: The Night

Read the scintillating edition of Part One here! …Now, Part Two!

I pulled on my jacket as Zachary dragged his bulging backpack out of the car. The sunset glowed behind the mountains to the west, and I looked to the east through the newly-budded trees at the rising full moon. The air felt chilly, hinting at the near-freezing temperatures that the forecast predicted. I donned my smaller backpack, holding our clothes and food, and Zach carried all the rest of the equipment.

The trail split off from the gravel parking lot, a muddy path wide enough for us to walk side by side. With excited glances at each other, Zach and I set off. 

Soon the mud gave way to a jumble of fist-sized rocks, with a trickle of spring water winding its way between them. We watched our footing to avoid twisting our ankles. The woods around us were silent, a lull between the daytime and nocturnal animals. Even the purple flowers growing in clumps along the trail had closed their petals.

We only hiked about a mile up the manageable incline before we realized we had barely enough daylight to set up camp. Zach pointed to a flat patch in the forest a dozen yards off the path, and I agreed that it looked like a good spot. We picked our way across rocky terrain and around a felled pine tree to our campsite. 

Within a few minutes we had scraped the ground clean, scattering fallen leaves and tossing the jagged rocks to the side. The earth was spongey and black. We pitched our backpacking tent, which takes less than a minute to set up. The sleeping pads took considerably longer; I stood outside while Zachary tried to blow them up inside the tent. I hugged my jacket closer and watched as the last light of the sun faded, and the moonlight grew stronger. The color of the forest morphed from golden to blue as the trees’ outlines softened to silhouettes. One by one, stars began appearing in the purple sky. By the time Zach had finished getting the inside of the tent ready, the moon was shining so brightly that I could see my shadow.

I crawled into the tent and we lay side by side, wrapped up in the silence of the forest. The sleeping pads provided plenty of padding, and our sleeping bag was warm. We talked a little, but the forest makes you feel quiet. We listened to the distant call of a whip-poor-will, something I had never heard before but instantly recognized. It was a pleasant sound, a solo song in a silent forest. Miles away, we heard the sounds of dogs barking, and I listened closely before deciding that yes, those were dogs and not coyotes. Eventually I drifted off to sleep.

I was awoken by a loud woo-HOO! Woo-HOO! Zach jumped in his sleep and woke up. “It’s an owl,” I whispered (a Great Horned Owl, according to my guidebook). As I sank off to sleep a second time, I realized that the sleeping pad was getting colder and colder.

The third time I woke up, I felt like I was lying on an ice cube. Our sleeping bags don’t have insulation on the underside, assuming you’ll get a sleeping pad that’s warm enough. This sleeping pad was not. I shifted onto my side, trying to put the least amount of my body on the pad, and tried to go to sleep. The air leaking in the top of the sleeping bag bit my ears. I dove under the covers, curled up in a fetal position, and listened to the sound of my breathing and the crinkle of the sleeping bag material. I heard the whip-poor-will again, and listened to him for a long time.

The whole night, I drifted in and out of sleep, always waking up shivering, and freezing on whichever side was against the sleeping pad— but not the other. Confident that I wasn’t getting hypothermia, I curled up next to Zach and wondered when the sun would rise. 

When the sun finally came up, I felt warmth seeping into me from the ground up. I dove under the bag and ended up sleeping in until 8:30, a total of about five hours for the whole night.

Zach and I crawled out of our tent and blinked in the sharp morning sun. It was time to break camp and start our hike.

~~~

Alps, Salzburg, Austria

Our First Backpacking Trip: The Drive

Working at a job with variable hours, Zachary doesn’t get weekends off. In fact, a two-day break is a rare occurrence for him. He didn’t have such a break last week, so I wasn’t expecting anything interesting to happen. 

Then, on Tuesday afternoon, he said, “Do you want to try camping down by Buford Mountain tomorrow night?” He was working 7 to 4 on Wednesday and had Thursday off, so if we got everything packed in advance, we’d have barely enough time to make the two-hour drive and arrive at the site before dark. 

We’ve been talking about hiking at Buford Mountain Conservation Area for some time now. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch claimed that the 10.5-mile loop was the most challenging trail in the St. Louis area. Zachary and I decided to check it out. With a little research, we learned that the area allows primitive camping. I hesitated, feeling anxiety. We only have one trail-worthy backpack. How could we pack enough water? Shouldn’t we think about this more? 

“We have a tent, sleeping pads, and sleeping bag,” Zachary said. “I can fit four liters of water in my pack. You can take your normal backpack with our food and clothes.” 

I hesitated a moment more, then said, “Let’s do it.”

The next day, I spent all afternoon rushing around the kitchen, trying to get all our camping food ready. We weren’t taking a stove, so all the food had to be both shelf-stable and edible at lukewarm temperature. Soon I had a backpack stuffed with hummus, crackers, bananas, apples, burritos, and lots of trail mix. I washed a mountain of dishes I’d created as I waited for Zachary to get home.

Soon he arrived, and after getting together some last-minute details, we left at 5:00. Of course we didn’t consider that we’d be traveling down Interstate 270 during rush hour. Inching along, we plugged Zach’s phone into our tape player and listened to side one of the Beatles’ white album.

After a brief supper at Chick fil-A, we were off again, leaving the noisy interstates behind and riding onto the slender back roads. The sun sunk closer and closer to the horizon, painting the tree’s feathery budding twigs with golden light. I was reminded why I love southern Missouri as the hills grew taller and green farmland and wide wooded hills spread out before us.

We hooked a sharp left onto Route U, and found our way to the entrance of a white gravel road marked “Buford Mountain.” Our car lumbered up a snaking path, until at last we stopped at a silent parking lot surrounded by thin-trunked deciduous trees that sloped up the mountainside. To the west, the hills hid the fading gold of the sun, and to the east, the nearly-full moon was inching toward the treetops. My heart pounded as Zachary and I jumped out of the car. It was the beginning of our first backpacking trip.

~~~

100-Word Memoir: Homeschooled

(A note from The Mandolin: I haven’t blogged the past couple days because Zachary and I took our first overnight backpacking trip! More on that tomorrow.)

~~~

I started homeschooling when I was three, sitting next to my oldest brother and copying the letters he wrote. When I turned four, I began teaching my two-year old sister how to read and write.

We grew up in a time when homeschooling was rarer. Mom wouldn’t let us out of her sight during school hours. Friends and family worried. Strangers and acquaintances grilled me about math. Most people assumed I was either a genius or an idiot.

I graduated with an ACT that would’ve snagged me an excellent scholarship for college. But I had other plans in mind.

~~~

Travel Tip Tuesdays: Five Mistakes to Avoid (Inspired by Yours Truly)

Sometimes it’s helpful to know what not to do. I’ve heard that the wisest people learn from other’s mistakes, but with my rush-headlong-into-everything attitude about travel, I’ve run into many situations where I realized I was making one of those “life lessons” mistakes. Here are five I’ve made that you would do well to avoid.

"I don't have a cell phone, I didn't confirm my travel plans,
and I missed my train! I guess this builds character..."

1. Don’t be shy when you need to figure something out. When you need directions, seek out a friendly person who can help you instead of agonizing over the map. If you need more information about where this train is going, what the staticky intercom announcement said, or which trolley takes you downtown, ask. I learned that bus drivers are usually brusque when you ask them to tell you where your stop is, but handling a little rudeness is ten times better than getting stranded by the side of a highway and doubling back because you missed your stop. 

2. Don’t travel without a cell phone. I’ve tried it once, and it did not end well. Pay phones are rare and a hassle, and it’s awkward to try to explain to a stranger that you need to borrow their cell phone for an emergency call. I was incredibly happy to have a cell phone when I fell and injured my tailbone while out hiking on the coast of San Juan island— I could call a taxi instead of limping the 10 miles back to the hostel. 

3. Don’t miss a chance to confirm travel plans. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought, “I pretty much know where the bus station is,” and found myself completely lost. If you have wi-fi, take a second to check the details of your plans for the day. It makes life so much easier.

4. Don’t zone out. I have a habit of going into a trance when I take a walk. Newly arrived in Utah, I decided to stroll around the neighborhood where my host family lived. I passed a pleasant hour wandering around. The next thing I knew, I sort of “woke up” and realized I had absolutely no idea where I was. This is fine when I’m in my hometown, but it was pretty disorienting in the middle of an unfamiliar city.

5. Don’t freak out. Okay, if you’re getting mugged or shot at, you can freak out, but don’t get all worked up about the non-life-threatening stuff. Jet-lagged in Europe, I could have saved myself a lot of stomachaches and headaches if I had just relaxed and focused on being rational through the uncertain plans and the missed trains. I did much better in Colorado, when I calmly decided to spend the night in an IHOP rather than freaking out about having nowhere to stay. When you’re calm, your problem-solving skills are ten times better.

Anyone have anything to add to the list?

~~~

Have a travel question? Leave a comment and I’ll answer in a blog.

Happy Earth Day

I know far too many people who dismiss anything remotely related to environmentalism, simply because it tends to be a “left-wing issue” and lends itself to extremism. Environmentalism can get out of hand quickly, leading to conclusions that I disagree with (animals are more important that people, the earth would be better off without people in it, etc.). However, there is no need for nature worship or human-hating in order to care for and nurture the earth. 

Even with all the brokenness, God has given us a beautiful world. Let’s do what we can to preserve and cultivate it for good.

Columbia Gorge, Oregon

Bellingham Bay, Washington

Pere Marquette State Park, Illinois

Petrified National Forest, Arizona

Rocky Mountains, Colorado

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

…God blessed [Adam and Eve] and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.…” And it was so.

…The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (Excerpts from Genesis 1 and 2)

~~~

Desert Plant, Tucson, Arizona

Longing for Narnia

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” ~C.S. Lewis

A few days ago, I read The Silver Chair, one of the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis. Although Mom read us the entire series multiple times when we were kids, this was the first time I had read this particular book for myself— and it had been over a decade since I’d last heard it anyway. Caught up in the world of witches, princes, and marshwiggles, I found new depth in the book and enjoyed it just as much as an adult as I did as a kid. The only problem was, the story stirred up a bunch of childhood emotions that still hold onto me— and ache deeply.

As kids, my three siblings and I identified with the Pevensie children, sometimes a little too much. Eric, the oldest, was Peter, a strong leader and very serious. I was Susan, overprotective and cautious. Christian was Edmund (although he usually resented getting stuck “being the bad kid”). Mary was, of course, Lucy, full of childlike wonder. As a kid, I didn’t like The Silver Chair as much as the other books because the Pevensie kids had been all told they couldn’t return to Narnia at that point. I felt even more emotional about The Last Battle because you find out that Susan has stopped believing in Narnia. 

I knew I would never lose belief, but I also never wanted to be too old for Narnia. After all, what child can read that series and not spend hours wondering if such a thing could be real, and if a wardrobe or a garden door  or a picture frame could be an entryway to a fantastic world? 

As a little girl I sometimes tapped the wall on the back of my closet. If I saw branches even resembling an archway when I was playing in the woods, I ran through them. I never fully expected to find myself in Narnia, but I knew it could never hurt to try. Some days, when things felt like nothing would ever be right again, I curled up in a corner and prayed that God would pick me up and send me to Narnia. For some reason, facing fear and death as a brave servant of Aslan seemed a lot better than standing up in front of my fellow homeschooled siblings to give an oral report about the invention of the printing press.

The struggle still continues. Lately I’ve been trying to reconcile the two realities of my life: 1) My life is generally quiet, commonplace, often boring. 2) I am involved in the most incredible and important battle in the universe (see: the entire book of Revelation). I’m a kid playing hide-and-seek in rainy England and a foot soldier in the battle against the White Witch, and these things are happening at the same time. For some reason, I can only see the former, not the latter. 

I’m beginning to realize what Aslan was thinking when he wouldn’t allow Peter and Susan back into Narnia. From then on out, the battles they had to fight were in England. The stakes wouldn’t seem as high after a physical battle with the army of evil, but they would not diminish— only become quieter. Commonplace. Maybe even boring.

I don’t ask to go to Narnia anymore. But I still feel the urge to go and tap on the back of my closet, just to make sure.

~~~

100-Word Memoir: The Tire Swing

It was the only “just because” gift I ever asked for: “Daddy, can I have a tire swing?” 

He said, “Sure.” I was stunned, because I thought he’d say no.

We drove to Wal-Mart and picked out a plastic tire. He hung it from the maple in our side yard. Every week I spent hours in motion, breathing in honeysuckle breezes, swinging up to kick the tree’s outermost twigs, singing nursery rhymes and DC Talk beneath a mosaic of silver-green and blue.

I never asked for another gift. In my mind, I had everything I could ever want.

~~~

Where to Go: Lost Valley Trail, Weldon Springs, Missouri

Marshland in the winter.

Zach and I consider any walk under 10 miles to be a stroll, so it’s difficult to find good hiking trails in the St. Louis area. Although some shorter trails are strenuous and scenic enough to be worth the effort (like the ones at Pere Marquette State Park), the little two- and three-mile meanders through the woods just aren’t worth driving out of our way to find.

That’s why I was happy to discover the Weldon Springs Conservation area. It has two trails that will take up the majority of an afternoon, both very pretty and crossing some challenging terrain for a Missourian (translate: decently interesting for anyone who lives in a state with actual mountains). I’ve written about the Lewis and Clark Trail before, which can be 5.3 to 8.2 miles of up-and-down terrain. 

The other trail, which Zach and I have now hiked twice, is the Lost Valley Trail, an 11-mile loop that winds through bluffs, deciduous forest, low wetlands, woodland meadows, and coniferous groves. We finished it in three hours last time, since my speed-walking brother Christian was with us, but for the average hiker it would take longer. It doesn’t have any impressive views like the Lewis and Clark Trail, but the woodland is pretty and the constantly-changing scenery makes it an interesting walk. If you are a day hiker who has a free afternoon, definitely check it out.

Directions: The trailhead is at a little parking area directly off Highway 94. You can look at the map here. (Adobe Reader required.)

Marshland in the spring.

My 500th Blog Post!

I’m a sucker for mile markers because I love any excuse to celebrate. That’s why I’m taking the time to point out that this is my 500th post on my Blogspot site, even though I blogged pretty consistently on a Livejournal account for a few years before this. But what does it matter? I’m celebrating anyway!

In honor of this landmark blog, here are five categories with five links each to some of my favorite entries and memories— just click on the titles to read the entries. Enjoy.

Five travel advice blogs: 

1. Twenty tips for pretending you’re on the road when you’re not.

2. How do I travel solo?

3. How do I take a volunteer vacation?

4. How does couchsurfing work?

5. How were you able to travel so much for so many years?

Five stories from my Epic Trip Out West in spring of 2011:

1. The first time I was in fear of dying on a trip.

2. The one night in all my travels when I had nowhere to stay.

3. My first couchsurfing experience.

4. My conversation with four homeless people in Tucson.

5. The Greyhound ride that was less comfortable than I would have preferred.

Five blogs about my trip Europe in summer of 2012:

1. Some of the most incredible true-life stories I’ve ever heard in person.

2. One of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen.

3. Life on a German-run French hippie farm.

4. Thoughts from the conclusion of my solo travels.

5. Thank you, John Lennon.

Five random thoughts and stories:

1. Monsters at the marina.

2. The only time I’ve ever been afraid of getting shot.

3. A rant about why I like stuff.

4. An entry about hope from my series Tolkien Quotes.

5. One of my favorite passages from Lord of the Rings.

Five blogs about meeting my husband and getting to know him: 

1. The most wonderful place I’ve ever slept on a trip (not as racy as it sounds).

2. One of the most magical days of my life.

3. A painful goodbye.

4. My return to Oregon and hiking with my future husband.

5. And, finally, the day that changed my life forever.

~~~

Travel Tip Tuesdays: How to Decide Where to Go

How do you decide where to take your trips?

According to legend, some people solve the problem of where to go with a world map, a blindfold, and a throwing dart. My decisions were never that random, although they often hinged on whims: “I’m going to Arizona!” “Why?” “Because I heard it’s pretty!” Deciding where to go has never been difficult for me. However, if you’re having trouble narrowing down the options, here are five ways to decide where to go:

Some places you're just obligated to
visit, like that one canyon in Arizona.

Locate family and friends. If you’re a budget traveler, this is one of your best options. Anyone who’ll be willing to put you up and show you the sights will make your trip awesome. I’m grateful to the family who have put me up in Colorado, Arizona, California, and, of course, Oregon.

Look at guidebooks. You know that everyone wants to go to Paris and London, but is that really something you would enjoy? A good guidebook can help you figure that out. Whenever I’m interested in visiting a place (such as the Southwest or Germany), I visit the library and check out as many guidebooks as they’ll let me. This helps me figure out what is most appealing to me.

Find a volunteer situation. You knew this was coming! Volunteer travel was my preferred method in my more nomadic days. Usually I started with a general geographic region and searched for help exchange hosts in that area. 

Travel to a special event. A festival in another city is really just an excuse for you to travel. Look up event calendars of cities you’re interested in, or check out a general event calendar (for events in the United States, I like Spirit magazine’s list).

Seek out somewhere completely different. I live in Missouri, so the Sonoran Desert, the Northwestern forests, and the Alps were foreign experiences to me. It’s fun to go places that remind you of home, but it’s a lot more exciting to do something crazy! You never know what place you’ll fall in love with next.

Whatever method you decide, remember to have fun, to appreciate what you experience, and to let your eyes be opened to a new set of wonders.

~~~

Got a travel question? Leave a comment and I’ll answer!

Social Responsibility in the Internet Age

The Internet ruins everything. Before the Internet, I could just stay away from the TV, and take long walks in the forest and pretend that all my food and all my supplies and clothes appeared out of nowhere, and that no bad things happened in the world. Now it screams at me every time I go to check Facebook.

My unfortunate downward spiral often goes something like this: “Oh, I like that Dove ad my sister-in-law posted! Wait, what’s this angry comment down below the video? Huh, what’s Lynx? What do they mean, ‘degrading?’ Let me Google the parent company, ‘Unilever.’ Wait a second… Dove is owned by the same company that puts out those awful Axe ads and promote the sexualization of women while Dove is running an ad telling women not to listen to the degrading advertising? What hypocrites! I… ugh… DARN YOU INTERNET!”

Information is available everywhere, whether you want to hear about the exploitation of workers in the coffee industry or the fair trade coffee industry, or the destruction of the rain forests to get palm oil for our body lotion, or the prevalence of sweat shops in India where clothes are made. All over the place, people shout out solutions: boycott this company, support that company, only buy secondhand, grow your own food, only get union-made supplies. The list goes on and on. My head starts to spin. This company uses ethical United States labor, but has sexually degrading ads. That company promotes positive use of the environment, but exploits its workers. This company claims to be responsible, but how can I trust them? 

That’s when I give up. Most people do. Eventually we assume that there’s always going to be destruction of the rainforests, and slavery and exploitation and sexualization and everything else. Cynicism seeps in. We figure that if we just close our eyes, we won’t be responsible for the evils of the world.

On days like this, though, as the spark of pain reignites in me, I realize that I can’t close my eyes. This is still the world I live in, and although I’ll never even be able to make a dent in the injustice, that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t do my best to live a responsible life. Of course, knowing what that looks like is almost impossible to tell. It’s useless to run around yelling at everyone who eats Hershey’s cocoa. It’s pointless to try to take the burden on your own shoulders. It’ll drive you insane. 

On the other hand, though, the worst thing you can do is turn a blind eye. Nothing good comes from that— only bad. I encourage you to care, even if you can only tackle one small issue and care about that. Petition for it. Raise awareness. Write companies. Talk to your friends about it. Pray, pray, pray.

The Internet is here, and with it more information than has ever been available to the average person before. Don’t turn away from that source of knowledge, no matter how painful it may be.

~~~

Double Rainbow, Northern Germany

Introducing the 100-Word Memoir

The premise is simple: every Friday or so, I will post one of my memories, in exactly 100 words. If you want, share yours in a comment below.

100-Word Memoir: My Earliest Memory

I was barely two when Mom took my brothers and me to say goodbye to our neighborhood friend, Tyrell. The room in his apartment was cream-colored and I think a crib stood in one corner. Tyrell’s mom was going to give my mom a mattress for our new house, and Tyrell offered my brothers a gift (I can’t remember what). 

Mom said, “Wasn’t that nice of Tyrell?”

I felt puzzled at her speech pattern. But a two-year-old doesn’t know how to articulate, “There’s no need for a proper noun— the pronoun would have been just as clear.”

~~~

Tree Bark, Tucson, Arizona

Modern Carrot Art

Step 1. Cut up carrots into carrot sticks.

Step 2. Place them in a whisky glass with 1/2 inch water in bottom.

Step 3. Leave overnight on the bottom shelf of your 1970’s avacado-colored refrigerator.

Step 4. Remove from glass and admire.

The Perfect Work Environment

Freelancing? …What freelancing?

It happens to me every year. “Yeesh, I can’t wait for spring break!” I say. “I’m feeling so burnt out on my students, and I can finally get to all that freelancing stuff I’ve been meaning to do.” 

And every year, instead of doing all that freelancing, I end up filling my days with long walks, family time, good books, and an aching guilt that I’m not doing any of that stuff I said I’d do. Instead of doing a little freelance work each week, I do none. Instead of churning out a blog every day, I forget about it. With no deadline forcing me to stay on my computer, I wander away from it and lose myself in other things.

Here I am again, scrambling to finish (and start) everything I meant to accomplish on spring break, even though it’s over now. It reminds me that having loads of free time doesn’t mean you’ll be more productive— often, it’s quite the opposite. When you feel crunched for time, you’ll work faster and more efficiently. If you’re a writer (or painter or musician or anything else), don’t quit your day job: either turn your passion into the job and work at it with the same discipline and time frames as a “real” job, or else use the focus that a deadline gives you to further your passion. “I don’t have enough time” is not a valid excuse. 

Maybe next year, instead of scheming all the freelancing I’m going to do over spring break, I could just take a break. That way, I would stop feeling guilty about that two weeks of other pursuits, and relax and recharge. It’s a good thought. I should probably listen to myself. But we’ll see how it goes.

~~~

Travel Tip Tuesdays: The Dangers of Comparing

Tip for the day: When you travel, be aware of what you’re comparing, and pause to consider.

Worlds all their own: Montara, California and Weldon Springs, Missouri

Humans love to compare things— it’s part of the way we relate to the world. That guy reminds me of a kid I knew in high school, this landscape looks like eastern France, and alligator meat “tastes like chicken” (although I think it tastes more like fish). Our language is full of metaphors and similes, and our brains love to draw connections between our present experience and things from the past.

This part of the brain is exercised a lot when you travel. For instance:

“That’s not a river, that’s a drainage ditch!” 

“Those mountains aren’t as cool as the ones at home.”

“This downtown is like my home city, except lame.”

“In America, we serve our beer cold!”

I’ve been guilty of this many times (see: the river example). You have a set of paradigms that you’ve grown up with. People who live near the Mississippi River think anything smaller is a creek. People from the Sierra Nevadas think any mountain that isn’t snow-capped is a hill. A St. Louisan is happy about that 90-degree day in midsummer, when someone from further north might suffer heatstroke. 

While there’s nothing wrong with comparing, per se, it’s important when you’re traveling to avoid letting your familiars and favorites get in the way of something new. Nothing kills a new environment faster than turning up your nose at it because it’s not like the places you’ve been before. 

Many travel enthusiasts scoff at the idea of traveling in Europe because they’ve been there before, and refuse to see the wonder that continent has to offer. Some people never take the time to see the beauty of Kansas or New Mexico or the Netherlands because those places aren’t as impressive as Colorado or Switzerland. My beloved home state of Missouri is overlooked and criticized because it’s not as good as Oregon/Florida/California/etc., and the people who feel that way don’t take the time to see the details that make the Midwest wonderful. When I was in Europe, I focused on treasuring each church I visited— although none were as incredible as St. Lorenzkirche, each had beauty to offer that I would have missed if I had compared them the other churches I had seen.

In the end, comparing places, people and things is inevitable. Just try to be aware of what you’re doing, and don’t let yourself become jaded. Every place in the world has beauty and wonder in it— sometimes you just have to put aside your comparisons and look.

~~~