The Thrill of Adventure

So it's finally summer! I think we will break into the 90s every day now here in North Texas and the sun has finally come out! I am so excited about all that summer brings and the adventures Jared and I have planned.

Speaking of which, some of those adventures include our newest endeavor...backpacking! Jared and I have always been interested in camping. We go all the time. But now, we are finally thinking about putting those fancy backpacks to good use and hitting the trails in the literal middle-of-nowhere.

Physically, this means I will have some different workouts going on. I still plan on running twice a week with my long run being five miles. Then I have a goal of riding my bike at least once a week. The rest of the workouts will focus more on strength in my back and arms so that I don't have to rely on my legs for all the work while hiking with my backpack on.

The biggest thing for me I think is going to be mental. As much as I say I love adventure, I get so anxious before traveling! I get nervous sweats at the airport waiting for planes. I get so anxious trying to plan for the "unknown."

So when thinking about backpacking, there is a ton of fear going on inside my head. When are we going to go? What trails are we going to take? How are we going to fit everything in our bags? What if we can't find a good campsite? What if we get lost? What if we see a bear????

I have been doing some research on fear this week for work. It's very interesting the studies that neuroscientists are conducting these days. One study is actually finding that we are wired as human beings to be optimistic by nature...assume the best about someone or something until proof of the worst. They also talk about how fear bypasses the logical part of the brain and goes straight to the emotional. But logic is how you quiet fear. No one fears a stampede of hippopotami followed by their car getting eaten by a T-rex when they drive on the highway because logic eliminates that possibility. When we see someone that's upset because of fear, we automatically try to help them calm down by using logic. And if we are having a really hard time, we can implement what scientists call "productive paranoia" where we plan for the worst case scenario while hoping for the best.

And that's kind of where I am right now. With my upcoming adventures, I am doing boatloads of research trying to arm myself with the knowledge needed in worst case scenarios (how to deal with a bear), as well as the skills to keep me from getting into worst case scenarios (buy a bear canister and use it appropriately). What's awesome is while I still get nervous about it, I am growing as a person because I am gaining new skills and learning new things about myself and what I am capable of doing.

I think God wants us to use fear, not be controlled by it. He wants us to develop courage, not limit ourselves because of anxiety. He wants us to continue to grow and learn and explore the world he created. So that's why I continue to travel, see new things and meet new people. Ultimately, I know that the best truth I can use against fear is the knowledge that God is in control and he has the ultimate power in any situation.

I recently re-watched an episode of Dr. Who where they search for the alien that might be the reason we as children fear the monster under the bed. But I love what Clara tells the child doctor at the end about fear:

"I know you’re afraid, but being afraid is alright. Because didn’t anybody ever tell you? Fear is a superpower. Fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger. And one day you’re gonna come back to this barn and on that day you’re going to be very afraid indeed. But that’s okay, because if you’re very wise and very strong fear doesn’t have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind. It doesn’t matter if there’s nothing under the bed or in the dark so long as you know it’s okay to be afraid of it. So listen. If you listen to anything else, listen to this. You’re always gonna be afraid even if you learn to hide it. Fear is like a companion, a constant companion, always there. But that’s okay because fear can bring us together. Fear can bring you home. I’m gonna leave you something just so you’ll always remember. Fear makes companions of us all."

Clara explaining courage to a young boy during the "Listen" episode using a small army figure.

Memorial Day

This weekend will be full of people traveling and grilling and spending time with friends and family. And thank goodness because it's summer! I know friends and family that have much anticipated time off coming up and I am so excited for them.

Jared and I just got back from a whirlwind trip up to Washington D.C. He had work stuff up there and so we made a quick trip out of it. We woke up at 3:00 AM to get on a 5:15 AM flight. We were in DC by 9:00 and we ate breakfast at this awesome place called Wicked Waffle. It was SOOO good! And a great way to start out a touring day.

We started by geocaching along the mall. Most caches there are virtuals (can you imagine the potential bomb threats in DC with physical caches?) but it's fun to go to each monument and learn something new. Jared actually showed me a monument I hadn't been to (what???) for the signers of the Declaration of Independence. We also found the point where they measure all the highway miles on the South Side of the White House.

Mile 0!

I love touring DC. I find that each time I go I find a deeper and more mature appreciation for all the Americans that have gone before us to protect our freedom.

My great uncle, who is on the Vietnam Memorial

Hello Mr. Lincoln

Which is why I was a little disheartened by the second half of our touring. 

We went to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. This is one of my FAVORITE places. We got to go look at the gunboat Philadelphia. It was a small boat that helped delay the British from sailing down the Hudson River and split New York from the other colonies. Had this not happened, we wouldn't have had time to raise and train our army to fight in the Revolution. They found it at the bottom of the river 160 years later and brought it to the museum, cannonballs and artifacts and all. It was so incredible to see what these people did back then. And what drove them? This idea that the government did not have the authority to take all their money and dictate their lives.

What was disheartening was the amount of high school students there on field trips that seemed completely disinterested or were talking through the museum spouting incorrect information. It wasn't just the high school students either. While sitting and meditating about the War of 1812 in front of the flag that flew during that battle (one of the most awe inspiring displays ever) there was a mom who came in with her two year old and told him "Look, it's the very first American flag!" 

*Face palm*

I do admire her bringing her toddler to see American History. But I don't know what does more damage...not bringing your kid or teaching them incorrect information. Never mind that she had just walked through the first part of the exhibit explaining the story behind the flag. But apparently she didn't think it was important enough to get her facts straight before teaching her son something. 

I get it. He's two. There's plenty of time to get the record straight. But this instance, combined with several other examples just in the few hours we were touring, just highlighted to me the lack of interest people have for getting their facts straight. It's why political pundits can just spew lies about stats and history and get away with it. Because no one knows if they are telling the truth because they don't know their facts. Apathy is a killer. And it's people's apathy that is going to trap them from their potential as not just Americans, but as humans. 

Americans have built our nation on the ability to identify a problem and create a solution. Then they refine the solutions until it is the best it can be. But I have seen a trend in history where we balked at our ownership of innovation and told the government to take care of it. That's not the government's job and that's why it fails at many of the things it tries to do (Obamacare website perhaps as one of many examples?). 

While standing in the Lincoln Memorial, I always take time to stand and read the Gettysburg Address engraved on the side of the building. Something stood out to me this time. While standing at this site where so many Americans died, he said there's nothing we, the living, can do to add or subtract from this consecrated ground. Whether or not we dedicate this space makes no difference because the blood spilt makes it a sacred place. Rather, it is us, the ones alive, who should dedicate ourselves to finish the work they started. 

So this Memorial Day, I want to take the time to rededicate myself to the work that so many Americans have started. I'm killing apathy instead of letting it kill me. I want to help make sure that the ideas the Founding Fathers used to create this nation stand. We are nation with a government by the people and for the people. Not a government where some people can bully other people into submission. Not a government where we take more of your money to reward those who break the law or don't work. Not a government where we shame you for being "politically incorrect." Rather, we can, and should be, a government that gets out of your life and allows you to build things that benefits  people. Because American history has shown that when Americans succeed, the whole world benefits.

I'm taking time to do that today. I hope you do too. And God bless America so that we may become who we originally set out to be. 

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln

November 19, 1863

My New Favorite Hang Out

I am so excited to talk about what might be one of my new obsessions...maybe not on the caliber of my Disney obsession, but it's up there. I'm talking about, my hammock!

Back in August, Jared and I went up to his family's reunion up in Pennsylvania. They live in Amish country. It was one of those times where I actually felt like a grown up because they actually let us rent a car from the airport and drive it three hours into the country. One of the favorite stores to visit while we are out there is called Peight's. It's kinda like Amish Walmart but the food quality is way better and the goods are much cheaper. One of those goods we bought was a hammock for $15. It's tiny and made of cotton rope but we finally got it put up on our back porch a few months after the trip at it quickly became one of my favorite spots. I love going out there and doing my quiet time. Reading my Bible and drinking my coffee is way better when enjoying the fresh air and letting the wind rock you back and forth.

Loving my hammock from PA

One issue is that it's a one person hammock. So if Jared and I wanted to hang out on the back porch, we didn't have two hammocks to hang out in. So inevitably, we would end up on opposite sides of the porch...one in the hammock and one at the patio furniture.

Fast forward to Christmas. REI was having a sale on their ENO hammocks and so I went ahead and bought one for Jared. It's a double hammock so I knew it would actually fit his tall frame unlike the Amish hammock would. He was very excited about it. And I have a live photo to prove it.

Jared with his new hammock!

Problem is, after Christmas is winter. Not hammock weather. So fast forward to spring when we finally get to try it out. Then Jared get's an idea.

"You know, there's all these cool hammock tents that they make for backpacking. We could use them and go backcountry in the woods and it would be so much more comfortable then sleeping on the ground in the tent."

Thus, a whole new adventure unfolded.

I give Jared credit. He did his research. He scoured YouTube for the best hammock set ups, things to think about, quality reviews, etc. He landed on a company called Sierra Madre Research. Not only are they great quality, but they also help provide clean water to communities that don't have access. Their story is actually one to check out and it is definitely worth your time.

So after watching all the youtube links that Jared sent me I finally got a sense for what he was wanting to do. And I was game. Skeptical...but game.

We then invested in a second hammock (the Pares from Sierra Madre), even bigger than the one from ENO that works with Sierra Madre Research's design. It's big enough for both of us if we only wanted to take one hammock and not bunk (good idea for cold weather, but not for hot). It came in a great package and I immediately went and set it up out on the porch. It was certainly super comfy. But it's one thing to set it up on your porch and a completely different thing to camp with it.

Loving how it folds up so small!

Testing it out on the porch! This thing is huge!

But we are people of planning (haha) and since we already had a camping trip down to Brenham planned, we just figured we would test out our set up as well. Jared learned what knots we needed to tie (I'm still working on that). And let me tell ya, it worked great!

I found it very comfortable. I made a couple of bug nets to go around the hammocks thanks to an instructable I found and Jared used a tarp to keep rain off us. We experienced two good solid Texas storms while out there but we were nice and dry. Duchess finally learned that under the tarp was better than outside the tarp. I was super comfortable. Jared read that when you sleep in a hammock, your back gets cold because of the thin hammock fabric. So before we left, he had me run to Home Depot while he was on a trip and buy Refectix, an insulator that they sometimes use in attics. It reflects 95% of your body heat back to you and we could definitely tell a difference when we slept on it in the hammock vs. not. I put my sleeping bag on top of that with our small camping pillow and I slept great, despite the storms going on.

Jared with our set up (tarp off at this point)

Speaking of which, that was another place we saw the hammock system really excel. Even though they weren't being good neighbors, we helped out the boy scout troop that pulled in next to us the second night we were out there. The morning after the biggest storm, they were talking about how their tents got flooded. The way the campsites were configured, we would have gotten flooded too because of where all the water was flowing. In a hammock, we didn't have to worry about that as we were off the ground and had made a homemade gear back to keep our stuff off the ground too.

So all in all, I'm sold. We are investing in a legit hammock tent set up called the Nube from Sierra Madre. The 2.0 version comes out June 2016. We plan on taking this set up with us when we go to the Smokies this year and even to Yosemite if the terrain is favorable. And, we figured if we have it, we might as well use it at Disney World since we are staying at the campgrounds for our trip!



Until then, you will find us on our back porch, in the hammock together. Saturday afternoon we had a wonderful nap in the hammock while a small cold front came in and a gentle rain was coming down. So peaceful. These are the moment's I'll remember.

Geocaching Trip to Brenham, TX

In case you want to watch our trip and not read...here is the Go Pro footage from the weekend! While these videos were primarily used for scrapbooking purposes, if you would like to see the places we got to go, you can check out the youtube playlist for this trip below!

So as explained last week, Jared and I went on a camping trip to Brenham where we also attended a Geocaching Mega Event. This was our first ever event of this type and we were very excited!

First of, we ended up camping at Nails Creek State Park. It's not my favorite State Park ever, but it does has a very long trail that goes all the way around the west side of the lake. It's almost 30 miles long if I can remember. Jared and I walked four miles of it the last time we were here. It was pretty, but nothing too memorable.

What was interesting is that they had many of the camping spots closed down because of flooding. So all the available spots were equestrian locations. We picked one in the back corner where there was a little bit of privacy. Good thing too. While we were alone on Thursday night, Friday and Saturday we had almost a whole suburb of people join us. They were blasting music and talking really loud. I honestly don't understand why people do that. It's so inconsiderate and personally against everything I believe camping is about.

Anyhow.

The Geocaching event taking place was hosted by the Texas Geocaching Association. It is an Amazing Race style competition where they hide around 100 geocaches in the area. There are regional teams (think North Texas, Central Texas, East Texas, etc) and those team race to see how many geocaches they can find over the course of three or four hours. There's special points awarded for teams that find geocaches first and things like that. It was a very cool concept.

Geocachers celebrate milestones with coins. Here's our coin from the event!

While we understand that Jared and I are abnormalities for work schedules, we were a little surprised at the demographics of the group. There were hardly any 20-somethings there and mostly older, retirees at the festival. Also, there seemed to be a ton of people that were more interested in drinking than doing geocaching. So much for making new friends that we would want to hang out with.

First event of the weekend.

One thing that was very awesome though is that Brenham and Washington County have a geotour, where they have a list of geocaches at interesting or historical places that you should visit. Theirs included the place where the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed, the cute little town of Chappell Hill, the original location of Baylor University up in Independence and the church where Sam Houston was baptized. We also got to see the location of Sam Houston's house. While it put several miles on the Jeep, the tour itself was incredible. The weather was impeccable and we loved driving through the country side with all the bluebonnets starting to bloom. We got a really cool geocoin for completing the tour (you get clues in each geocache that you then have to write on a "passport") and we loved seeing all the cool historical spots and shops in town.

Bluebonnets in bloom at Washington on the Brazos

On the porch of a store in Chappell Hill where we had to
walk up and down Main Street to solve a lab cache.

Antique carrousel in Brenham

Location where they signed the Texas Declaration of Independence

Example of a clue in the geocache!

Up in Independence at the site of Sam Houston's house (it's actually across the street from us)

 Speaking of cool shops in town, we of course had to stop at Blue Bell while we were there. There was a cool pottery place as well and of course, the airport!

Blue Bell!

Our crew grabbing a cache at a winery!

The other thing that was very cool at the event was the introduction of Lab Caches. These are geocaches that are only available for a certain amount of time (in this case, the weekend of the event) and were field puzzles you had to complete. They ended up coinciding with many of the geotour spots so we were able to complete them in a reasonable amount of time. However, it was sad to see that on the leaderboard, there was a ton of cheating. Someone completed the puzzle in 0h0m. Hmmmmmm.....

Our congrats message for completing the lab caches!

However disappointing our fellow humans can be sometimes, we loved the lab caches and the tour. These were actually the highlights for us as the event seemed a little disorganized with a lack of information and communication to those wanting to come see what it was all about.

Next on the blog, I really want to share our new obsession, hammocks! So look for that in the next week or so!

Details about our hammock system next week!

Day 2 Recap: Universal Studios!

We were pumped to get to go to Universal Studios. Jared, Dad and myself had not seen the new Harry Potter section or the Hogwarts Express and we were not disappointed!

We started our day in Islands of Adventure for early park admission!

Everyone's excited!

Hello Sorting Hat!

We then hopped on the Hogwarts Express and made our way over to Diagon Alley!

We met Stan Shunpike!

I was so excited because I got chosen to do the wand selection at Olivanders! It was truly magical and I got a 16" wand made out of oak with a core of Dragon Heartstring. It was also an interactive wand which is what we were shopping for in the first place! So we then made our way around Diagon Alley trying out our magic skills!

Practicing our magic!

The Gringotts ride was down when we arrived but re-opened after a few hours. We were so excited to see inside!

Man that dragon is impressive!

Hey look! It's a goblin!

We did lunch at the Leaky Cauldron!

Once we meandered around Diagon Alley for a while, we finally made it to the rest of the park. :)

Mom's turing into a Minion!

We then went back to Hogsmeade before we had to leave the park!

I'm going to the Hogwarts Express!

Next on the agenda was attending the expo and picking up our packets for the race!

All ready!

The best part of arriving at our hotel was the "private" viewing of Wishes from our balcony!

In case pictures aren't enough, there's this thing called YouTube that has all the videos from our vacation!

Aaaand we're back! Recap: First day of vacation!

Whew! After a whirlwind of a great time at Disney and then coming back and getting a cold, it's been a crazy couple of weeks! I am so excited to get to share my vacation on here. I know when I need a mental break, it's fun to watch other's home videos. Hopefully, you will enjoy all the videos capturing the things we got to see and experience!

First up, our arrival in Orlando! Jared and I got there a little bit early on Thursday just because of the whole standby thing. We got to explore and hang out most of the day while waiting for mom and dad to arrive!

Taking the water taxi from our Universal Hotel to City Walk!

Of course we geocached while we were there!

Here's the YouTube playlist of our first day of vacation!