Thoughts on a Mountain Top

Did you have a wonderful weekend? Mine was absolutely spectacular!

I abandoned my laptop for nearly 3 days (probably a record for me) and we took the whole family camping. It was the girls' first camping trip and I must say it was spectacular, despite some rain Saturday night and Sunday morning.

We drove down to Cascade, Colorado and pitched a tent at the Lone Duck Campground there. Wow -- I feel like we hit the jackpot of campgrounds with this one. A huge playground for the kids, heated pool, fishing pond, shaded grassy camp sites with electrical and water, hot showers, decent toilets, great views, pancake breakfast every morning, the works. PLUS - the office stayed open 24 hours, selling just about everything you could possibly need to have the most fun camping ever.

Of course, we hadn't been camping in forever, so we forgot to bring a lot of stuff. I think we ended up buying as much stuff as we brought (not quite, but it felt like it) but it's all good. Everything was very reasonably priced and much more convenient than having to drive 10 miles to the nearest Wally-World.

We did some geocaching over the weekend (Sally calls it Treasure Hunting) and had a blast. We also drove to the Summit of Pike's Peak (14,110 feet!) which was a white-knuckled drive but absolutely gorgeous nonetheless. Views from the Summit were simply breathtaking. Made me wonder how I've been living here 2 years and haven't yet seen it.

The kids were so great, it was a delight to take them camping. Even though the girls had a giggle fest and didn't want to sleep when it was time for bed on Saturday night (believe it or not, Sydney was the instigator -- at 9 months old!) But it was much easier than I anticipated, and we are looking forward to enjoying more camping for Andy's birthday this weekend.

Seeing the terrain at the top of Pike's Peak was truly amazing. I found myself thinking about Zebulon Pike, making up his mind to scale this bad beast (withOUT any roads!) I thought about how THIS is the mountain that inpsired the lyrics to "America the Beautiful." I thought about old these rocks must be, how amazing it is that anything can live -- much less thrive -- up here in these conditions, and I thought about what a small blip we humans are on the radar of planetary existence.

Yeah, it was one of those thought-provoking kind of days.

I also found myself thinking of the Aboriginals, living off the land. OK, I had no segue there (from Colorado mountains to Australian outback and bush), but it's just what was on my mind. I thought about how disconnected I had let myself get -- how all of us get -- from this earth, this land that supports me.

Did I tell you I recently started recycling? Yes, I know, shame on me for living this many years without recycling. The point is, I'm doing it now.

And I am amazed every single day at how much stuff I can recycle. I mean, we consume HEAPS of stuff that can be recycled (my Aussie friends are thinking, well, duh Amy, we already know that) but really.

I mean, if every American only recycled every water bottles we use, I'll bet that would double the amount of recycling that's going on in the U.S. right now.

I'm even recycling toys now that we're geocaching. As the girls get bored with something, I pop it into my swag bin and take it with us on caching runs. Sally gets to pick out something new from the cache, and she learns to put something in. I think the whole experience is great for her. And of course, Syd just loves coming along for the ride.

What a great opportunity for teaching my kids. But of course, I look at everything that happens each day as a great opportunity for teaching (and for my own learning). It's part of why I'm here.

QoD:
Do YOU know why you're here? The sooner you get that figured out and start living it, the happier you'll be. Trust me, I speak from experience.

So if you do know, are you doing THAT every day? Why not? When do you think would be a good time to start (oh, how about NOW)?

If you don't know -- why not take the time to work on that now? Just ask for guidance -- you're sure to be amazed at where answers can show up.

And share your breakthroughs with me if you feel so inspired -- it's what keeps me going in this work. :-)

Go for it!