Letterboxing

I took my oldest son and my niece letterboxing this weekend. Michael's 4H group has some hiking/letterboxing projects that the 4H'ers can work on. Michael loves trails, hiking, trees and the great outdoors, so this is perfect for him.

My sister and mother stayed at the house with my two little ones while I took Michael and Cherokee to the Indian Rockhouse Trailhead. It was a 3 1/2 mile trail, with the most difficult part at the end. That is when everybody really began to complain about their legs hurting and so forth. Why they saved the steepest most difficult part for the end of the trail, I'm not sure, but they did.

We saw lots of sinkholes, natural rock formations that were amazing and squirrels. The little creatures seemed to be everywhere on the trail. We had clues from the 4H club, and we followed them carefully. However, we never found the letterbox kit, and therefore weren't able to add our stamps to the journal inside it.

Some interesting things happened on that hike. My niece, who was so ready to go and ready for an adventure, was the one struggling the most at the end. She had failed to pace herself carefully at the beginning.

I had never been on this particular trail, but I have been hiking before. The trail map from the ranger station, as well as the 4H letterbox clues, gave me enough information to realize that we were very close to the Indian Rockhouse, the halfway point of the trail. We had one more steep climb, and then it would level out and we'd get to the rockhouse. But Michael and Cherokee begged for a rest. They were pleading, truth be told. I informed them there were no breaks until we got to the rockhouse. I reminded them that I was 35 years old and had three kids. If I can do it, they can, because they are young and full of energy. Come on guys, keep up with me! I told them that they would thank me later for pushing them on now. We finally made it up the hill and to the rockhouse and we were greatly rewarded for our efforts. The scenery was beautiful. I explained to Cherokee that it is much easier to get a car up a steep hill, if you have the momentum from going down the previous hill. It would be much harder to drive up that hill, if you had come to a complete stop at the bottom of it. I told her it was the same with our hiking. If we had stopped and took a rest, when we had good momentum, just before this one last steep hill, that hill would have been much harder to climb.

I learned a lot yesterday. I learned that previous hiking experience, even though I wasn't familiar with this particular trail, had helped me have a better hike. I also learned that not pacing yourself at the beginning can make it very hard for you at the end. Actually, my niece learned that one. I learned that even though we were looking for the stamp, and never found it, we still enjoyed the journey. I also learned that the strap on a $6 desert canteen from Walmart isn't worth 50 cents. My poor niece ended up carrying her canteen on more than half of the trail, because the strap broke. She had just purchased the canteen on Wednesday, and it broke this weekend. But she didn't complain, and she carried her canteen. I remembered how peaceful it was on the trail, and how blessed it is to let God see your heart so openly out in nature.