The day started out cold and dreary – unseasonably so for mid-May in Kentucky. It would have been easy to stay inside and waste the day watching TV and surfing the internet. But, Mikayla and I had plans and we weren’t going to let the weather affect us. We decided to go hiking at a small lake in northern Warren County called Shanty Hollow (a popular climbing spot for locals).
Ran into a guy I went to college with and he snapped a few pictures for us.
Our destination was the waterfall. Mikayla enjoyed it, but had much more fun just throwing rocks in the water.
Many people know about the waterfall, but don’t take the time to follow the creek down where it cuts through the rock and makes a very cool ravine.
We then hiked out along the creek bed, stopping every 100 feet or so for Mikayla to throw more rocks into the water. Although it was a bit cool and a bit wet, it ended up being a great morning to be out. Here is a video of Mikayla throwing rocks!
Here is Mikayla’s tough girl look. She picked some honey-suckles and then wanted to walk the last quarter mile on her own (up until then she had mostly ridden on my back).
Our last stop was the lake shore… where of course she entertained herself by throwing more rocks. She also found a hawk feather laying on the trail.
Overall it was a great morning that served as a simple reminder of the joys of getting off your butt and into nature. I figure we had better enjoy the cold, wet weather, because the next several years won’t have much of it!
Henry David Thoreau is a personal hero of mine because he authentically lived his life and was willing to call into question the status quo. His writing span a wide swath of topics from nature to civil disobedience to truth. He is considered a transcendentalist and was significant in influencing people like Ghandi, JFK, MLK, Tolstoy, Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Here are a few of my favorite quotes from Thoreau:
If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.
A man is rich in proportion tothe number of things which he can afford to let alone.
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.
I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison.
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
Being is the great explainer.
Do not worry if you have built your castles in the air. They are where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.
I stepped outside this evening to get something out of my car and was blown away by the dancing beauty of an electrical storm lighting up the night sky. From my vantage point the cloud-to-cloud lightening was non-stop. I have no idea how long it had been going on or how long it lasted, but I spent a good 15 minutes mesmerized by the sight. I did not have a tripod for my still camera, nor our good video camera so I had to settle for the video setting on my point and shoot. You can certainly get a feel for it, but in real life each strike lit up the entire sky.
