Emotional hiking experience.

From my hike on Sunday Nov 7 at Wright county trail.

The birds are chirping as I crept along slowly. Stalking my imaginary prey this fine fall morning. The air has a bit of a bite and the clouds are dripping now. The smell of the forest lingers in my nostrils as I joyously walk and am amazed.

I took a trip off path this morning, I wandered through the woods. I thought, I wonder what’s down there and my curiosity needed to be satisfied. The hill I ran down was quite steep. I leaned back, took big steps and slowly jogged down the hill. I never needed to be taught this.

After a bit of snooping, I saw an orange hat across the crick that was in front of me. It dawned on me that it was opening hunting season and how this puts me in danger. I scurried back to the trail. Past the buckthorn bushes I had to scrape my arms on to get through and up the steep hill.

If I were to have died in that moment I wondered, what would people say at my funeral?

If i were a betting man. I’d say that my men I served with in Bravo Company would have said I was beloved and always had their best interests at heart. I put their needs over my own. Sacrificing sleep, food, and comforts right along with them.

My friends would remark me as a man that always was there for them when the need was there.

My coworkers and (struggling to find a less harsh word for subordinates) would regard me as fair and fight for them as a worker. Pushing them to grow into first tier professionals. Mastering their art of design and drafting. Others would say I’m stern because ‘he knows what will work’ [and won’t work intuitively.]

But who are the ones that would call me insensitive? Those that scorn me for my beliefs? What kind of person would it take to call me ‘not manly’ enough?

Those people have a lot of hate and self doubt in their hearts. I’m not sure why they do, but I’m sure there’s a story behind it. Why do people HATE gays? Why do people fear the unknown? Why can’t we just exist with each other. Not wanting violence. Not wanting power over each other. Why can’t we just be?

I’m sitting on top of a large hill overlooking what looks like now is a silent and majestic river winding its way through the lowlands. Forever pushing south to join the mighty Mississippi. From there that water will take months to travel down to split the borders between Iowa and Illinois. Growing ever stronger, ever wider, it looks like a tree trunk but in reverse. Instead of producing nutrients and collecting carbon from the atmosphere. It’s taking those nutrients and dragging them into the sea. The absolute Massive massive scale of nature is something to behold. Nature created this perfect. System to feed its oceans. Which in turn feeds the rest of the planet.

As I walk down a side trail, tears well up in my eyes as I think about how wonderful it would be to have a place where if my friends were down on their luck, they could come live with me rent free. They just have to help me out on the land. No major work unless a major project was going on.

I would enjoy the company, they could enjoy some time with me too. Going outside their comfort zone and doing something that they may or may not have ever done before by helping me build a new cabin. Or a pole barn. Or a wood shed. Who knows! I could design and build all sorts of things if I had time and a little land.

But as the tears evaporate from my now wet fingers trying to sop up the tears of how great a friend I could be if I had the means. I realize that these teardrops are now part of the atmosphere. The moisture will dissipate and become part of the environment now. Eventually making its way up into a cloud to maybe rain down upon the east coast as the clouds get pushed up into the atmosphere creating some dense fogs in the Appalachian mountains (Smokey mountains).

One day I hope to hike some of the Appalachian trail.