Friday March 29, 2024
Dear Diary,
I woke up at 3:30 AM and had to pee. Rosie had set a plastic cup outside my tent for me so I could use it in the middle of the night for pee rather than having to walk up to the bathrooms. I reached out, grabbed the plastic cup, held it in place and started peeing. The pee starting going everywhere all over in the tent. I jumped out of the tent stark naked, since that’s how I like to sleep, and finished peeing on the ground. I went back in the tent and wiped up the pee with my dirty clothes. Thankfully it had only got on the bottom corner of the blanket I was laying on and the rest was on the floor. I would deal with the blanket in the morning and I went back to bed. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I wrote my blog until 6:30 AM and got completely caught up, which felt good. Then I fell asleep until 8:45 AM.
I could have slept longer but I wanted to get started with the day. We had big plans to hike and ride bicycles and play in the river. I got dressed and crawled out of my tent. I saw the cup that I had tried to pee in during the night lying there and it had a lid on it. No wonder my pee had gone all over 😂. Rosie was sitting in the doorway of her tent doing something on her phone. I told her about my nightly peeing incident and we laughed. I asked if she wanted tea. She said she did. I got my plug in tea pot out of the truck and filled it with water. While I was waiting for it to warm up, I squeezed lime juice into my stainless steel mugs and put loose the leaf tea I brought in my tea-ball and started getting things together to make a smoothie.
When the tea and smoothie were made, Rosie and I got ready to go on a hike up to the top of a hill called “Old Baldy”, then we planned on looping around and hiking some other trails. I was feeling run down with low energy. I had a tiny bit of a stuffy nose and my body was sore. I figured if I got moving it would pass. I packed the smoothie and tea in my backpack and we headed out with Little Bit on the leash. The trail was labeled as challenging and even though it’s not the same as climbing a mountain, hill country has some pretty steep hills. There was a lot of steep climbing and climbing up over rocks but I enjoyed the climb. The views were spectacular when we got close to the top and I fell even more in love with hill country.
We reached the top and took a break to eat. I drank most of my smoothie. I was really hungry and I knew my smoothie wasn’t going to last me the whole hike if we did all the trails we planned to do. Rosie and I sat there enjoying the view and talking. We had an amazing talk about everything being energy, including God. She asked about my burnt leg and I told her about it getting burned by hot water when I was a baby and how my mom won’t tell me the real story about how it happened. She pointed out that I may never know the real story in the lifetime but to truly forgive my mom would be to not need to know the real story. Truth! A peace swept over me and instantly let go of needed to know the story. I felt something inside of my physical body shift and release. I know my leg is a gift that has taught me to see things differently than most people and it is not a curse, it’s a blessing. I said a prayer of gratitude, thanking the Holy Spirit giving me that insight through Rosie.
As we continued our conversation on energy we heard some loud heavy rock-n-roll music. A man came up the trail huffing and puffing, loudly playing Highway to Hell. Rosie and I looked at each other and started laughing. I wonder if he was enjoying his hike on his highway to hell 😂. Playing Stairway to Heaven might give him a whole different experience. After the man passed by Rosie and I continued our conversation about energy. As we were talking, I had an awakening about my airport experience the 2 days before. On Wednesday morning when Angel woke up at 3 AM and immediately started talking at full speed. I remember thinking “this is going to be really long day”, not in a positive way either but with an energy of dread. Well, guess what kind of day it was? It was a really long day. We missed our flight, I stood in line for an hour and a half, paid a lot of money for another flight and I was functioning on very little food and sleep. I had thought my day into existence right after I woke up at 3 AM. Our thoughts our powerful. The Bible speaks of guarding our thoughts and minds in several places. For example, Proverbs 4:23: more than anything you guard, protect your mind, for life flows from it.
Later that day, after getting the tickets for our new flight. I was able to sit with my yucky feelings and pray for guidance. Then I saw how to shift my energy into gratitude by flowing with what was happening and let go of needing to get upset about my “long day”. I switched from ungratefulness to gratefulness. I had felt ungrateful about being charged to get another flight, I changed that into being grateful that I had the money in savings to pay for another flight. I felt grateful for the giving and receiving of money.
Right after switching to gratitude, I connected with a friend I had never met in person before and got to spend time with her. She gave up a place to sleep for the night and got up with us at 2 AM to take us to meet our Uber the next morning. I had felt ungrateful about the cost to get an Uber, then I switched it to gratitude that I had that option and that I had the money in savings. The whole rest of the trip home, I went back and forth between ingratitude to gratitude. It was great practice and whatever we practice we get better at. The best part was, I stayed present with my feelings through the whole experience. I didn’t eat junk to try to numb them, I didn’t drink alcohol and I didn’t smoke marijuana…all of which I easily had access to. I simply felt my feelings. My feelings clearly showed me whether I was resting in faith and gratitude or whether I was having dark fearful thoughts. If I would have ran from those feelings and tried to numb them then I wouldn’t have seen what I needed to see to change my perspective into one of gratitude and acceptance. This is living!
Rosie and I finished our conversation and headed out to hike some more trails. Somehow we got on a side trail and ended up coming back down the Old Baldy trail. This was actually a blessing because I was feeling like I needed to rest. We stopped at bathrooms and I had an episode of diarrhea (yes, I know…TMI but it’s real life stuff). I came out of the bathroom and told Rosie I needed to rest for an hour or so and then we could continue our adventures. She was fine with that and had been wanting to do some exploring on her own anyway. We walked back to the camp and I had to run to the bathroom for another big D episode. After it was over, the stuffiness in my nose clear up a little and I felt better. On the walk back to our camp I saw people in hammocks. That’s what I wanted to take a nap in, rather than laying in my sleeping bag on the hard ground.
At camp, I told Rosie I was going to the camp store to buy a hammock and rode my bicycle there. On the way there I stopped at a gift shop and bought a t-shirt that I liked. I returned and set up the hammock. Rosie went off to explore on her own and I had to run to the bathroom again. I couldn’t believe how much waste was coming out of me after not eating hardly anything the 2 days before but I was glad it was coming out. Better out than in! This time when I came out of the bathroom, the stuffiness in my nose was completely gone and I felt great. Whatever my body had been needing to detox, it was out. I felt energized. I was ready to hike and explore again. I went back to camp and rested in the hammock with Little Bit for a while. It felt good to lay there and meditate and rest.
It was a really windy day and I got chilly laying there. Rosie came back and wanted to go float on the Frio river on tubes she had brought. I said it was too cold for that. She said it was really warm over at this other spot she had been at. I was skeptical about that, I was cold. I suggested we ride our bicycles on the bike trail and if it warms up we can go floating. She was all for that and we took off on our bicycles. We rode a 5 mile bicycle trail and it was great fun. I had Bits in my backpack some of the time but he ran along beside us most of the ride. He is a tough little dog. At one point we stopped along the river and it was hot out over on the other side of the park, just like Rosie said. It was out of the wind and that made a huge difference. We waded around in the crystal clear water and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Bits ran through the water trying to catch fish and had a great time. When we finished the trail we came out near a gift shop. We stopped to see if it was open and it was closed. There were a couple of men sitting at a picnic table next to the gift shop that had electric bikes. I started asking them questions about their bikes. My electric bike burnt up some wires and I hadn’t gotten it working again but I want to get it fixed and start riding it again. Their bikes sounded like they were way better than mine and I might consider buying a new one.
Rosie and I got to talking with the men about all kinds of things. Their names are Rob and Rey and they travel for 3 months every year in their motor home. Their next stop is somewhere in Louisiana that sounded like a really neat place. I can’t recall the name of it at the moment. We talked with them for quite a while, they were great fun to talk with and we exchanged phone numbers to stay in touch.
On our way back to our campsite Rosie wanted to show me that giant cypress tree she had seen earlier when she was exploring on her own. We rode to it and it was so huge you could stand inside of it. There were a lot of huge cypress trees along the river, they were majestic and beautiful. By the time we got back to camp it was starting to get dark. We ate or actually I drank a whole 59 oz. container of fresh squeezed OJ. My body was feeling really really good and the OJ hit the spot.
At around 8:30 PM we went to bed. I wrote my blog and fell asleep around 9:30 PM.
thank you for reading my blog, and being a part of my life. I dearly appreciate you.
Love,
Victoria
P. S. This blog post was inspired by the Holy Spirit.