The last week has been pretty quiet around this blog. A couple people had asked for updates. Several friends and family members had a camping trip planned half-way across the country and I joined them on it.

A friend and I flew out and promptly had a flight cancelled at our only layover. Our pilot was sick and they were unable to get another. The poor airline workers tried to reroute everyone. The woman who helped us was more than a little relieved that we could be routed to an airport that was about three hours away from the destination of everyone else that had tickets on the flight (moving a lot does have its benefits).

We hit the campground the next day. There was a lull in work to be done after some of the preliminary setup so I took a hike in search of river water that was clean enough to drink. I failed and was told when I returned that we were forbidden, by the park, from walking the river bed because of the large quantities of poison oak. Maybe I should learn how to identify the plant.

That night I slept a full twelve hours (the preceding two nights had been rather short). A twelve-mile hike was planned the following morning and a three-mile hike to visit caves that evening. Groups travel too slowly so I took the liberty of hiking a few extra trails and lost track of mileage somewhere after twenty.

The hike was fantastic. I have been sitting far too much lately and needed a good, long walk. Come to think of it, the lack of an internet connection was great too.

Quite a few other events transpired over the weekend. I watched my sister climb one-third of the way up a rock face – her first attempt at rock climbing. Several other friends made it all the way up.

Someone spoke for a few minutes on Sunday before we broke camp. He used Matthew 6:25-34 as his reference:

Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

This was a topic that I had already mulled over several times during the course of the weekend. Worry can be infectious.

To make a long, rambling story into a short one, I had a blast and even survived it (lest anyone had any doubt).