The View From Here – I Swear It Was “This BIG”

I swear, I am just not meant to be “at one with nature”.

A few weeks ago it was a close encounter with a coyote.   This week, a spider.

You can laugh at me.  I certainly do, quite often,  and it’s okay.  (smile)

My youngest daughter and I headed out on an adventure.  To celebrate the end of vacation for me.  To get out of the house!  To do SOMETHING!

A day to ourselves to talk, laugh, share and explore and it did not disappoint.

We talked about starting high school and how that might look and feel.  We talked about friends and boys.

And as we made the drive to Rock Glen Conservation Area – a place I went as a teenager with my friends – all these emotions and feelings came over me.

Isn’t it strange, that a place you grew up with can still hold so many emotions, tied into so many memories? As we drove into the area, I told her about my mom.  A place we used to go to do our laundry when the washing machine broke down.  Where we would have these same conversations over ice cream and snacks out of the vending machine with the promise “don’t tell your brothers and sister!”

Something about the area you grew up in.  The memories come flooding back.  The good and the bad.

We got to Rock Glen and it was BUSY!  Despite the cloudy skies, and threat of a downpour.  Lots of people enjoying the great outdoors.

The waterfall is beautiful no matter how many times you see it.

The hundreds of stairs you need to walk to get there will always exhaust me.  Some day I’m going to count each step.  Nothing makes you feel more out of shape than climbing the stairs at Rock Glen.

It was a beautiful day for it, and it was nice to be there – until I saw IT.

The biggest spider I ever did see.

I’m not exaggerating.  And I saw this AFTER I already had my bare feet in that water to take pictures.  I swear, it was a big as my fist.

My daughter threw a rock to see if it moved.  It did.  We thought it was going to jump out of the water and eat us alive.  So we screamed.  We ran.  We laughed at how ridiculous we looked running away from a spider.

Is this NORMAL for spiders in our area?  Are they usually the size of a fist?  Can we put some sort of tracking device on them so I know where NOT to go?  Yes, I know how ridiculous I sound.

If anything, the fear it created should have burned even more calories than the ones from the enormous amount of stairs we climbed.

That’s how you end vacation I guess.

It wasn’t the only adventure we had.   We got fries under the bridge, ice cream, I got my hair cut and got to talk to a real person – which felt amazing.  No more coivd hair – I feel 10-pounds lighter and happier too.  I was able to get out and get pictures printed to add to my planner – which has really turned out to be a bit of a memory keeper of the last six months.

Anybody else keeping a record of what we’ve been through?  Interesting for sure to look back on the last few months.

Little by little, more and more feels “almost” normal.  As we do more.  Even a hair cut feels like a luxury after waiting so long.

So yes, I think I may stick closer to home.

Where the spiders are smaller.

Categorised in: Afternoons

This post was written by Carrie Buchanan