What made the trip even more fun is the fact that Bear is a
Christian and so we really wanted to hear about how his faith guides his day and who Jesus is to him. The night was incredibly inspiring and while we were down near Louisville we just had to do a couple adventures of our own. We had the opportunity to visit Charlestown State park and Falls of the Ohio on Monday. I lived in the Louisville area for almost 10 years so I am very familiar with the area but I had not had the opportunity to check out Charlestown State park when I lived there. It was quite the adventure and though the park has six trails, we spent our whole time on one trail or more accurately near one trail. We are always up for the trail less travelled and are always interested in taking those paths where you end up in new and interesting areas. In our adventure we had the opportunity to cross a bridge built in 1927, swing on a rope over fourteen mile creek, have a go at building a brushwood raft, and explore concrete structures from an old military ammunitions plant. We definitely had a great time and were glad to see the Jeep when we were done. In all the joy of a successful adventure, I decided to celebrate by fishtailing out of the empty gravel parking lot we were in. Of course as I did here comes the park ranger driving down the road. Knowing what I had done was wrong, I drove exactly the speed limit with my eyes fixed straight. We decided it would probably be good to leave after such a thoughtless showing. I learned that we have to be careful to not let a successful adventure cause us to sin or hurt our witness to others in our life. In our joy we have to be sure to protect our witness to others.
Next we went to Falls of the Ohio, which is a park on the Ohio River where a dam and retaining wall system has been installed to allow visitors to explore the river bed that is full of fossils. Sometimes you can walk in the whole area of the park and other times a large section of the river bed is covered by the river as the corp of engineers open and close the dam to regulate the level of the Ohio. I was hoping since there has been a huge drought in the Louisville area that my friend and I would get to walk out and so the whole fossil section but unfortunately the dam was open. We enjoyed walking on the accessible part and enhanced our adventure by going over to where the dam was and checking out the dam and railroad bridge area. We were even able to get so close to the dam that we were only a few feet away from an insane amount of water that was rushing out. It was crazy to think how many tons of water was coming out of the gate. The water actually held its form for about 30 ft past the gate before disseminating and flattening into the river, as you can see in the picture. It was humbling to consider the strength of the concrete walls we were standing next to that were protecting us from the power of the raging river water. Though the water behind these walls could’ve ended our lives in a second, we were safe because of the strength the concrete provided to hold back the water. Do you ever think about the ways our God is protecting us from the authorities, the powers of darkness, and the spiritual forces of wickedness that are all around us each day?
On our final adventure of the weekend, we went to Clifty falls state park. This is a park that I have been to many times and had taken Jono to once before. We decided to take a trail neither of us had taken before to enhance the adventure and survival aspect of the hike. The first part of our hike ended up being a fairly bland yet very tedious hike up a river bed, hence the sleeping log shot. We still had some fun but I was the one who lead us up the river bed because I wanted to see the water falls and thought we were closer to them than we really were. After ten or fifteen bends in the river bed, about mile and a half, we finally decided to turn back and return to the car.
During this hike back I discovered that Jono had not wanted to be on the river bed in the first place and I missed or disregarded his signals indicating this. This river bed was a difficult hike because the river bed was filled with large jagged rocks that are the equivalent of hiking in sand. Each step required careful footing and walking quickly was not easy or an option. By the time we got back to the trail that brought us to the river bed, we were both tired, hungry, and cranky. Jono desired to get back to the jeep by climbing out of the ravine we were in instead of taking the trail available to us. I was already exhausted and had my dog Leah with us. I was afraid that climbing out of the ravine would be to dangerous and was hoping that Jono would realize this and we would just go back to the original trail.
Well, during the process of finding a way out Jono and I got separated and I attempted to climb a part of the ravine to try and reconnect with Jono. While climbing a rocky slope with Leah, I was overcome with the fear that she and I were not going to make it and that I was risking bodily harm or death for both her and I. I made it up the ridge and reconnected with Jono but found out that we had climbed the wrong side and would have to climb down the ravine again and climb up the other side. At this point I had reached my limits and I went off on Jono for deserting me, putting Leah’s life and mine in danger, and for getting us into this predicament. I let my fear and anger control my words and made a situation that was already bad worse. Let’s just suffice it to say that neither one of us was happy in this moment but we both knew what had to be done.
So we proceeded to carefully climb down the ravine together. Then began to climb the other side, which turned out to be much more challenging than the first side. This did not help my anxiety in the least especially since Leah was having trouble climbing this side of the ravine. Jono did a fantastic job to sticking at the task at hand and encouraging me that we were going to make it. We ultimately had to use a rope that we had brought to work together to help me pull Leah up to each new level of the ravine. This was a slow, difficult and scary process. There were a few times I that only the rope was keeping me and/or leah from plummeting down to the bottom of the ravine. Jono was the anchor to me and I was the anchor to Leah. As we continued this system we slowly but surely made it to the top. Jono, Leah, and I finally made it back to the jeep by using teamwork. When we made it back to the jeep we were incredible tired. We both apologized for our part in the struggles we had just experienced and forgave each other for our own shortcomings and words spoken in fear, anger, and frustration in the hike. I learned an important lesson about brotherhood and friendship in that hike. You have to listen to what your friend is really saying, stay together in all circumstances, and trust each other when the going gets rough. I believe all three of these lessons apply to our daily walk with Jesus.
In some ways, our adventure trips are like our lives. Jono and I prefer to take the path less travelled. Sometimes this gets us in perilous, difficult situations and yet at other times we find hidden treasures and views many have never seen. The path less traveled is not always easy. It many times requires a partner so you can watch out for each other. It always requires you to be alert so you don’t get lost and definitely always guarantees a good story and lesson learned. Jesus asks us to take the road less travelled everyday and we have to be careful to follow Him because it is so easy to be led astray and end up in a situation that is perilous. We each have to learn survival techniques in our Christian walk to help us get out of those traps, snares, and dangerous situations the devil tries to lead us into.
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