Last week walkabout took a trip to Big Bend National Park. Jason was in California, so Scott and Anne came as our leaders. It was fun to hang out with them more. The trip was good. I wasn't very excited for it at first, mostly because I felt horrible, and I was extremely tired.
The week before we had a group from a school in Houston come. It's a Jewish school and it was really interesting having them here. I went into the week excited, and a little scared to facilitate my first group of highschoolers, and especially highschoolers who don't believe what I believe, it's just different. But as the week went on I ended up getting more out of that week spiritually then I do when we have a christian group here with services and stuff. They were asking all sorts of questions...which was pretty cool 'cause I wanted to learn from them about what they believe but then they were so interested in what we all believe here that we would sit down during free time and just have long discussions about the Bible, I lost count of how many kids heard the gospel from all of us that week. It was pretty cool, but it made me really excited to read my Bible again, and not just read the Bible, but it made me really excited to study the old testimant. They also reminded me of how important Jesus really is. As I was telling the gospel story to one of the girls in my group she told me that they believe that you don't have to be a jew to go to heaven and that you can pretty much believe whatever you want (although I think it was a lot about doing good things too). I thought that was interesting, and a little sad. If everyone goes to heaven when they do "good things" then why live this life, what's the point, I'm so excited to live my life for God, for someone bigger then me. And I'm SO glad that I don't have to earn my way...'cause I suck!
Anyway, this group was interesting and even though we don't have the same beliefes they inspired me to persever through the parts of the old testimate that can sometimes get pretty tedious.
Well, that group was here from Tuesday until Friday and then we had part of Friday off after cleaning camp and then a retreat group came in and I worked Saturday morning until after lunch clean and then I went into town with Kandace and Robert and Josh. We went to TJ Max and looked for some warm things for the Big Bend trip, Robert bought socks, and then we went to church at Oak Hills. Max Lacadoe actually preached, which was cool, but I was a tad dissapointed... I talked to Meredith the next day and we sort of descided that sometimes we get disappointed by churchs because we listen to such good podcasts all the time here, and then we finally get the oppertunity to go to town and expect every sermon to just be amazing and blow us away. And when we don't get blown away we get disappointed. I don't mean to say that it wasn't good...it was just not what I was expecting. The sermon was about a few verses of Act 14 I think. And it was basically just the gospel, which was good, I felt like it was lacking an application for the believer, but maybe that was just me. After church we went to Bass Pro Shop, that was an adventure. I had never been to a Bass Pro shop before. Then we ate at Chick-Fil-A I miss that place! And then a little Walmart run and back to camp.
The retreat group stayed untill Monday, so the next two days was filled with lots of working with the group, taking them on the Sherpa, working the coffee shop, and cleaning meals. Monday we started cleaning right after lunch. We finished about 4 or 5 and then went streight to packing up for Big Bend.
Tuesday morning we packed up and left camp at about 11:30 or 12. It was a 6 hour drive to Big Bend, which wasn't too bad. I slept for a while, as usual, and we just hung out and listened to lots of music. After arriving and taking some pictures at the welcome sign we headed on to find out campsite for the next two nights.
Wednesday was a good day we got up, made breakfast tacos, and headed out to a short hike in a valley which I can't remember the name of, but it was where the Rio Grand comes into Texas. Then we headed on to hike The Lost Mine Trail, which is the second highest peak in Big Bend.
At the beginning of the week Scott assigned leaders for each day and Thursday was the day that Anna and I lead the group. This meant that we had the hiking book and the map to make sure we went the right way. Thursday was also our backpacking day so Anna and I had to make sure we didn't get lost going to our new campsite. The day started at the dark and depressing hour of 6:30. We got up and the stars were still out, no sign of the sunrise yet, but we woke the group up, ate breakfast, packed up and headed out. Starting our hike up Pennical Trail to the base of the Emery Peak Trail where we dropped our packs and summitted Emery Peak, the tallest peak in Big Bend at 7825 feet. After hiking back to our packs after Emery we had a short solo time and then headed on to our campsite, another 4 miles or so up and around. That day was a full 9 mile hike uphill...it felt WAY longer.
Friday we woke up at about 8 having gone to bed at about 8:30 the night before, but barrely sleeping at all. That night was way too long and 5 girls in a 4 man tent got pretty crowded. We packed up and headed back down to our original campsite in the chisos Basin with a view of the window. This hike was much easier, only about a 7 mile hike almost all downhill. My only complaint for this day was my ankle hurt pretty badly and I had to wear an ankle brace the whole day and be extra careful of tripping over rocks. We went to town that night to eat at a resturaunt/bar where we were the only customers for a while until one man who appeared to be a regular and finally a couple of others who wandered in for dinner.
Saturday we were all really excited to have slept in a bit, and have our packs on again, and were looking forward to the hot springs later on that day. First we went to the Sand Dune. It wasn't my favorite but Moses sure have a fun time playing in it. I hung out at the bottom and talked to Annie. After the Sand Dune we went on to the Hot Springs where we just relaxed for a bit. Then Robert, Amanda, Anna, Lezlie and I jumped into the freezing cold water of the Rio Grand and swam across to Mexico then jumped back in and road the current down to a rock where we got out and ran back to jump into the warm water of the hot springs. After the hot springs we went on another hike in the Grapevine Hills where we saw the famous Balanced Rock, which was not nearly exciting as I had hoped. But Scott, Robert and Moses had a good time ditching us to boulder and just climb some cool rocks.
Sunday we packed up and were headed out by 8:20. It was a cool trip. I'm glad I went.
And somewhere along the way I just hiked my cold right out of my system...
I found myself wondering if the uphills would've been easier if I hadn't felt horrible and had to blow my nose every few minutes. But dispite not feeling good at the beginning it was a really fun trip and I'm glad I went, but it's good to be home and it feels really nice to be clean!
This is a Map of the Chisos Mountains. Emery Peak doesn't look like the tallest..but it is. and The Lost Mine Trail is the other one we hiked, the the second tallest.
All of us after a long night at our backpacking camp site, NE 4.
We had an awesome view overlooking Mexico, where some of us ate breakfast.