A few blogger diehards (one may also call them addicts although they would take exception to that label) have been at me to write more, stooping so low as to compliment me on my exceptional writing skills. This, of course, inflated my under inflated ego to such inflatedness that has not been seen since my grade 9 English teacher went into rapture about my poems and any other written material I presented her. (Under careful reflection I must admit that this may have been due to my large and varied vocabulary which starkly contrasted with the 4 letter word vocabulary that my compatriots used as I was in a ‘special’ program that was used either by home scholars or high school dropouts.) Therefore, (“Finally.” you say?!) I have taken fingers to keys again.
This last Monday was Canada Day, and to celebrate it corporate Canada shuts down. This is delightful as it translated to little old me getting a long weekend. It has become a long standing tradition for various friends and I to head out to the backwoods in search of serious adventure.
“Backwoods?” you ask. What this constitutes is borrowing tenting gear from whomever is willing to lend it, air mattresses, much food, a camp site complete with running water toilets and showers, and a nearby beach for soaking in the rays. When you’ve been born in bred in the city anything more backwoods then this is just a tad overwhelming.
Saturday Day: Walked through sand dunes! The sky was slightly overcast and it was low 20’s. Perfect day for a hike. Each of the members of my group minus myself uses English as a second language. So very frequently conversations would take place in French or Frenglish. This required either immediate interpretation or waiting till the person they were commenting on walked by so they could interpret without being rude.
Saturday Night: I overindulged in water, tea, s’mores and all else yummy. For some reason sleep was slow in coming. Eventually I dozed off. Midway through the night my bladder hit full, I was frozen solid and one of my neighbors was snoring. My solution for these problems: I tried not to think about my bladder, I curled in a little ball with only my nose touching the cold air and I alternated attempting to awake the offending member with nice, gentle nudges and holding my thoroughly damp pillow around my ears.
Sunday Day: Went on this 36 km hike- at least part of it. Walked about 13.5km through gorgeous rolling hills covered in grass and spruce forest. Birds chirping, the creek bubbling, and the sun blazing. Then we discovered the ticks. Gaby had the good fortune of finding the first one. She was ecstatic! By the time we finished our hike we each had collected hordes of the bugs under, on and in our shoes. It was the best part of our day.
Sunday Night: Our campsite was lovely, we were surrounded by a bunch of families who were really quite. UNTILL now. Two cars filled with 17 year old boys pulled up and invaded the campsite next to us. Never before has someone imitating my laugh made me feel like a loser. They stayed up late and got up early. ‘We’ had many conversations about them when they could totally hear us- in French.
This night was christened ‘burn the rest of the newspaper night’. This constituted the best, biggest, hottest and roaringest fire we created all weekend. Apparently we need to take fire building skills 101.
Monday Day: We packed up, sat at the beach for thirty minutes and the rest of the girls left. After this I was able to spend 2 hours laying on the beach reading ‘Christianity: Opium or Truth’. The title is a play on a quote by Karl Marx, “Religion is the opium of the people.” The basic conclusion being (or at least what I’ve gotten so far) that being a follower of Christ is not a religion but a relationship. Jesus is a man so completely unique in all of history that His claims make Him either a lunatic or the Son of God, one can not just brush Him off as a ‘good man’. So what do you think of Christ?
“...that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time...” 1 Corinthians 15:3b-6a.
