Texas Deb Goes to Crested Butte - Day Three
Texas Deb Goes to Crested Butte – Day Three
At this particular season of life sleep is a very valuable commodity. If I get to nap on a laid back Sunday afternoon and the kids don’t come in to ask me if they can play on their tablets eight times individually or there’s not some sort of colossal laundry build up I have to attend to I feel like I won the lottery. Sleep is important and I never feel like I get enough of it. It’s like I’m working on a sleep deficit I’m never going to repay.
I woke up on day three after having taken Benadryl the night before because I was reminded that Colorado not only dries out all of my mucous membranes but that I am also very likely allergic to the State itself. No big deal. For this blessing of a trip, 62 degree weather and this beautiful scenery, I’ll suffer through. No one want to hear my whine anyway.
Anyway, the thing is I woke up somewhere around 8 something which is 9 my time and 3 hours past when my usual Texas Deb inner clock pronounces that the day has officially begun. Not only that but I slept for a whole nine hours and eleven minutes according to my trusty FitBit.
Wow.
Rested and still in my jammies I made breakfast and was not really ready to take on the day until around 10 if you can imagine.
Since I got here I’ve really, really wanted to go hiking. Now, I hike back home and try and take the kids. There’s a particular trail we like at the Fort Worth Nature Center with a lot of ups and downs rocky steps, etc. Believe it or not there are actual hills back home, not mountains though. Remember I’m coming from a place where we name small elevations in the landscape because they really aren’t all that common. We have “mounds” and “hills”, we give them actual names and treat them like the significant landmarks they are. Around here in Colorado, I’ve learned not every hill and rocky formation has a name. They’re pretty much no big deal (insert my incredulous face here).
My kids really like “the hill trails” and I would say as far as the climbing involved and the upward hiking, the landscape of the Judd Falls overlook trail near Crested Butte was somewhat equivalent in difficulty as what I’m used to. Again, at home, I have an app I use occasionally that will not only tell me what trails are close by but they are rated by difficulty. When I’m with the kids we usually go with the “easy” ones and sometimes stray into “moderate”. Judd Falls was listed as “easy”.
I am admittedly currently rather chubby, but I can still run a solid 3 miles when I try hard and I’m in the middle of trying to lose said “chub”. Seriously. I mean it.
I really didn’t think an “easy” trail might get the best of me. The thing is, right before you hit the actual trail you have to climb up the side of the foothill of this actual mountain. Not a mound, or a hill, but an actual mountain. As I saw many older folks come down the trail when we parked and many families with small children I thought this was going to be great; a refreshing, easy hike.
Right off the bat, scrambling over what felt like a 80 degree grade to get to the trail, stepping on natural stone steps and tree roots, selectively so as to not stumble and fall downwards onto unsuspecting husband behind me, my heart started pounding I started breathing like a ninety year old lady with emphysema. I was seeing stars and my ears were hot.
I was so embarrassed. It’s one of those times when I can blame it on the altitude all I want but no one is going to believe me. I’m just the fat girl from Texas who has no business owning two pairs of hiking boots.
There were kids in flip flops ready to run past me and a couple of German girls giggling as they pounded their walking sticks into the rocks. I know they weren’t mocking me, but they might as well have been!
Anyway, so after that embarrassing episode, which really resulted in way more stops to get to the trail than I would like to admit to, things levelled out and we actually got to see some beautiful scenery.
That’s the thing about mountains, at least to me. I’m reminded about how big and powerful God is even when they’re standing in the distance appearing as if some optical illusion. You drive by quaint little mountain cabins and thing how picturesque they look. The reason I like to hike is because I want to experience them. I want to be there; touch it, smell it, hear it, taste it…. Well, maybe not taste.
I said before they make me feel small and my God seem so immovable and mighty. Looking at them is one thing, feeling their dust, the result of years of wind and weather on your feet, experiencing how far your legs have to stretch to pull yourself up from step to step, is a different thing all together.
It was a beautiful place. The trail, though mostly gravel and well-travelled, when up and down like white caps on a lake. We were surrounded by pines, dark firs and aspen and the wind swept down the mountains and through the valleys and gradually began to sing with the sound of the waterfall as we got closer.
The waterfall toppled over sharp edged rocks that had they been clear couldn’t been shards of glass.
I don’t know if I can effectively write about that or how close that can get you to God but I encourage anyone to get out and have an adventure, chubby old lady or not. Because, unless you go, feel the wind on your face, your heart pumping (even if it feels like it’s in your throat and your lungs might explode and you’re ashamed to say so because you’re Texas Deb and you’re super tough), your legs climbing; unless you smell the trees and hear for yourself the wind and the waterfall; unless you GO, you’re not going to BE anywhere.
Well, that’s a bit of a ramshackle blog. I’m having trouble putting my thoughts together due to the lack of oxygen to my brain. Just kidding. Really though, it’s been my goal lately to put down my iPhone, set aside Facebook, and be in the moment. When I’m in the moment, my fear washes away. My anxiety is easily cast where it needs to be and I can see God.
I can see Him in the sunshine on green dancing leaves and hear Him on the breeze.
