I just had the privilege of going on my first vacation in several years. Oh, I’ve taken a weekend here or there, but this trip was 10 solid days. The title represents how I have been describing it when someone asks how my vacation went. Each of those words has a double meaning to me.
Challenging can be good or bad, and it was both. I enjoy being challenged by a strenuous physical activity. I climbed two significant mountains and did other hiking. Conversely, I drove many miles and endured black flies in Maine.
The beauty of God’s creation always inspires me in two ways. We are drawn to beauty, variety, order, bigness, in a word, grandeur. The reason we are drawn to beauty is because it points us to God’s beauty, power, knowledge, creativity, and supply for us. That in turns causes me to want to worship and serve Him more and better.
Most people I talk to want a vacation to be relaxing. I smile to myself and think of the Norman Rockwell painting of the family in the car on the way to and from vacation (1). I choose to embrace the tired and take on some bucket list challenge. Afterall, you come home in order to get rest from vacation, right? My definition of vacation is an enjoyable change of pace that puts you mind at ease. That may be relaxing or strenuous, depending on your personality and physical, mental, and spiritual state. On the vacation that I am beginning here to detail, it was tiring for two reasons. I hiked 38 miles in 8 days. For an AT through hiker that is two to three days, though I say even most of them have trouble with 21 of those miles that I did. Secondly, I drove 2650 miles to get to these hikes and visit several friends and family members along the way. Being somewhat of a stats guy, that means that I drove 70 miles for every one mile that I hiked. That probably means that some of you are questioning my sanity (yes, including you, BST!), but when you have certain limits, challenges are increased. There was also a heat wave in the NE that pushed me to beat the heat with early rising, 4, 4:30, and 5 AM.
With that thorough introduction, let me begin the story of my 2024 trip to New England by you clicking on “Lackawana to Smuggler’s Notch“.
CreatorWorship 