Serenity

Yesterday Katie, Ryan, Jessie, Matt, and myself went down south about 13 miles to Kannaraville to hike the falls.  It is one of my very favorite hikes.  I was getting rather anxious to go because summer is really winding down.

I love this hike, but usually we have a love/hate relationship.  See, at the very beginning you have walk up this ENORMOUS hill.  Once you get to the top, however, you see this beautiful view.  Then you go up and down more hills like that and it is just so much fun.  But you can't give up because the best views are inside the canyon.

As I was hiking up these big hills, I had a deep thought.  In life, we have to climb our hills, go through our trials.  When you finally reach the top, it is beautiful and you can see everything; all that you learned and know.  But it never ends there.  You have to keep going up hills and learn from them.

Those hills always kill me.  Matt never really noticed this before, but this time he did.  The other three were doing really well, and I was the slow one.  They went ahead and Matt stayed behind with me.  He's such a nice gentleman.

In this hike, there are many different paths you can take.  They all take you to the same point, but some are faster.  It may be easier at times to just wade through the water.  Other times it is easier to go on the dry ground.  Of course I compared this to life.  Everyone takes a different path, but they all reach the same point.  Some take the easy route.  Others take the difficult route.

Since the others left the slow turtle, Matt and I took a different path than they did.  This is what we found.

 People had written things on this wall in the canyon.  I thought it was so interesting.

Eventually we met at the same point.  And climbed up the ladder.  If you don't remember how much I love that ladder, read this post.  When Matt and I got there, there were a bunch of people.  Ryan and them were already up, but they were helping everyone else up.  There was this little family that we helped.  The mom was carrying two little children in carriers.  And she went up the ladder with no hesitation.

She is super mom.  I could not have done what she did.  It already scares me to death to do all that.

Then we got to the rock slides.  Ryan had water balloons that he was blowing up and throwing in the water.  It was funny.

I missed the balloon.

Katie and Jessie

Ryan.  He doesn't know I got this picture. :)

Matt and I.  He was eating.

 Then we left and reached the second ladder.  I didn't go up.  But we did go under the waterfall you can see.  It was cool.

Then we went back through the canyon.  The cheetah's left the turtles yet again.  But my turtle buddy was very good to me.  I was so hesitant that day.  He would  pick me up and put me where I needed to go.  It was so nice to be there and just be able to talk.  That's all you can do!  And, just for the record, I walked the whole way.  The whole picking me up thing doesn't count.

Today my hips aren't happy, but it was worth it. :)