We'll travel on, over mountains so high
We'll go through valleys below
Still through it all we'll find that
This is the greatest journey
- Steven Curtis Chapman -
A couple of months ago, Isaac and I had the privilege of joining some friends for a crisp, Saturday morning hike. Normally, this nursing student enjoys getting some much-needed rest on the weekend, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to see some gorgeous views and have some fellowship with great folks :) When you're busy all week with school, it's a so refreshing to spend time with family and fellow-believers to refocus and de-stress.
Ahem, not to say that this particular hike wasn't stressful, because the first mile up...yeah. It totally was. It was very rocky, and for an inexperienced person like me, it was hard to keep balance. "Thanks a lot, Tyler" went through my head about a million times.
Buford Mountain is located in Caledonia, Missouri, about 35 minutes from where we live. The hiking trail can be either 10 miles or 6 miles round trip (we opted for 6 so that we could have more time at the top). At the top of the trail (at least I think it's the top...it's definitely up there) there is a clearing called Bald Knob. Among the big rocks and dry grass we shared lunch (at 8:45am, lol; we were very hungry!) and took some pictures.
The view was just...AH! It was spectacular :D
The guys ate MREs, and although I assumed that they would be gross, they smelled good, and Sam claimed that they tasted good. I, however, enjoyed my real turkey wrap and grapes ;P
The "worship album" pose ;P
We tried to take some pictures together...and although we had some epic fails with the automatic shutter (I still had my quality set to RAW!), we got some good ones ;)
This was my first time to shoot in RAW format, and I was really pleased with the way it captured the grass and trees :D
This mossy stuff was EVERYWHERE! I loved the look of it. And right as I was talking about it, my bestie-pal Grace had the same idea as me: LET'S STICK OUR FEET IN IT AND TAKE A PICTURE. Ah, blogging really changes your photographic perspective ;D
Looks like we weren't the only ones to find moss :)
We just got done with a three mile hike, and were about to do another three miles... and yet the guys thought it would be fun to do push-ups! I will never understand.
"Look- an abandoned nest!" = yet another picture idea for us blogging peoples (by the way, you really should check out Grace's blog over here!) And, of course, Sam had to go and ruin it ;P
Back on the trail :)
We ended the day with some antique shopping in downtown Caledonia and ice-cream from Dollar General :)
On another (completely different) note, I recently joined Polyvore after seeing the fun "sets" of items you can make. One of my first ones that I made was inspired by our hike:
