Camping - part 4 Firetower trail

Ahhh...Firetower trail.

This particular trail sticks in my memory more than the others, because several years ago when My sister, I and our friend first hiked up it, we mistakenly read the map and thought the 3 1/2 mile trail looped back to where it started...long story short, it didn't, so our 3 1/2 hike turned into a 7 mile hike that took us almost 5 hours! To make matters worse, we had started in the afternoon, so we had to hurry along to get back before it started getting dark. (It wasn't really that late, but when you're tired, hot, hungry, and have been walking for 2 1/2 hrs; everything seems worse and more uncertain than it really is)
 Suffice to say, when we finally made it out of the woods, I was sure I never wanted to go on that trail ever again! And yet, years later, it is now our favorite trail, the one that we must hike up, even if we don't get to the other trails.

A lot of life is like that too, often when you try something for the first time and make a mistake, your first impulse is to hate the thing and never have anything to do with it again! But- when you take the time to learn more about the thing and understand it better, you actually start to like the thing. Knowledge really IS power..and it's no surprise then that God tells us:
 "Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold." &
 "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is insight."

We need to not only seek knowledge and wisdom (and seek it like we would silver) but we also need to seek it from The Source, God himself.

(Proverbs 8:10 and 9:10)

The Firetower is located on the relatively flat top of one of the Ozark mountains, so the first part of the trail is quite steep, with some switchbacks thrown in here and there to make it a little easier to climb.

Most of the time the woods were so thick we couldn't see anything but more trees beyond them, but in a few places the trees thinned a little and we could see across to the other mountains . . .

 Once we got to the top though; the rest was shady path, after shady path, after delightful shady path.

The trees are quite tall, and their intertwining branches usually met overhead, which made me feel like I was walking through a woody tunnel, the kind you read about in books. And while I enjoyed the leafy tunnel very much, the forest was so quiet in some parts, that it almost got spooky, and I welcomed the spots where the trees were less tightly packed together, where the sunlight spilled freely down on the path . . .

Now for the Firetower itself:

Reaaaaaaaally tall, but still not as tall as the surrounding trees. Incidentally, back when it was built, you could actually see for miles around, and, undoubtedly see if there was a fire anywhere. But now? Good luck finding the sky!

Going up is pretty easy, as you're looking up the stairs; but going down?

It looks like this . . . you can see down to the ground every. step. of. the. way.

Luckily, I've climbed trees all my life and am used to looking down from great heights. But still- I must admit that even I got a little tipsy going down, and I had to make the conscious effort look away from my feet and turn my eyes to the trees and whatever else is at eye level. Because I couldn't trust my eyes. They led me astray when I looked down, telling me I might fall.
 My feet, on the other hand, told a different story- they told me there was definitely something solid under my feet. I only had to trust them.
 It's the same as when we take our eyes off Jesus during our walk through this world. We look down, see so many things we can't control and suddenly feel like we're going to fall. Like when Peter walked on the water out to Jesus; as long as he had his eyes on Jesus, he was fine, but when he looked away for just a second, he started to sink.
As  2 Corinthians 5:7 says "For we walk by Faith, not by sight"

These pictures are from the very top of the tower . . . not a whole lot different from being up in a tree actually. ;)

One of my favorite shady paths . . . <3

Well, hope you enjoyed this post, I had a few more reflections on life than I usually do. ;)
I have one last post with pictures from camping, and then I'll share some snapshots of summer where I live. =)




Through His Grace,

~Jenny

Camping pt 3 // Fishing

Ah; it' been quite a while since I posted!

Summer is like that I suppose...why stay inside on the computer when you could be outside?

Exactly.

 The other reason for my lack of posts, is that I've been spending quite a lot of my inside time drawing. Mostly birthday cards for several of my friends and little girls at our church, but also doing some watercolor and hoping to experiment with acrylic paint. If enough of you are interested in seeing my artwork, I might do a post on my drawings/cards/paintings. =)

Right now however, I shall wrap up my camping series.  ;)

This part of the river was very deep, so from my dad and brother's point of view it was good for fishing, and the depth also gave the water that rich teal color, which from my point of view was good for painting. Everybody was happy.

While they fished, I divided my time between water coloring and wandering around a bit, down a grass lined  path on near the bank. I'd been warned of snakes sunning themselves on the rocks, but the only things I found sunning themselves on the rocks were some wild orange-red Poppies.

Quite the dirty tackle box, eh?
 Apparently some poor fisherman sat too close to the edge of the bank,(which is nearly vertical as you can see from the two pictures above) because under several feet of water, but still visible, lay an algae covered folding chair, and a tackle box of indeterminable color. (Turns out it was really a nice shade of blue)
Our theory was that the fisherman must have caught a whopper of a fish that pulled him off balance, causing his inevitable fall into the drink. The chair didn't look worth saving, (plus the fish were using it for a jungle gym, swimming over and under the legs) but the tackle box looked to have weathered better.

This bit of river in the shade was the perfect place to blur the water using a slower shutter speed.

Then my brother called me over . . .

 . . . Cause he'd caught a fish!

A nice specimen of rainbow trout.

My brother was just fishing for fun though, so he freed the fish from the hook and let 'im go.

The excitement over, I went back to playing in the water . . . this time with large rocks. ;D

I love this splash! It's amazing how water can mimic glass . . . 

Rainbows

I love finding rainbows in unexpected places!

Through His Grace,

~Jenny