A glorious sunrise over the... valley... wait........

That's no sun...

Adminisk8or

06/26/2024

Some weeks, like the last, felt like they kept going on and on forever- and not in a good way. This week, on the other hand, felt like it was over all too soon.

I finally caught up on a couple of things that'd been on the frontburner of my to do list, one of which being that I ran the (almost) last two ethernet lines through my house, one to my backyard camera, and the other to my kitchen TV. It wasn't the hardest thing ever, but it required some crawling through a host, dry attic on a hot summer's day, and routing some wires in tight corners. Installing and routing to the camera was only half as hard as the ethernet cable that I ran to my kitchen TV, which was an even tighter corner- but that worked out pretty well, too.

The other thing I caught up on was changing my entertainment room's sound system from quadraphonic to 7.1 surround. I didn't think it'd be all that hype-worthy, but I have to admit, it is a really nice experience, now!

And in the world of other interesting stories, I went on a night hike with my friend this weekend. We had gone on one similar last July- in fact, the very same trail- and on that night hike, we had nearly made it to trail's end- when we encountered a skunk which perfumed my friend's dog a little too well. This time around, we ran into no such cats. No, instead we apparently opted to run into rattlesnakes- two of them, if not more (we only visually saw two). But not only did we encounter them visually, both of them got pretty defensive and sounded off and then coiled back ready to strike. It was a hike that did not put one at ease- at least in that sense. But, oh, was the hike ever worth it.

We made it to the peak, this time, overlooking my valley below, and we made it just in time to watch not one but several cities or other organizations shoot of their fireworks shows. It was a fun view, and the stars coming out as the sunlight faded over the west horizon was just awesome. But I confess, no moment was as glorious as what came after that.

After we started our descent back down the trail, we were carefully treading our way through the trees on the path- my friend and his dog, with me in the rear, and mostly just the starlight to guide our feet- when we looked off to the east hills many miles away and saw what we gathered to be some kind of brush fire. But the odd thing was that it was pretty isolated on the peak of one or two hills... wait... that's no fire. No, in fact, it was the full moon of a summer solstice rising gloriously over the hills. To describe it as fiery and very illuminated almost seems like a disservice to the description of its glory. And yet, I couldn't properly describe to you how it looked shy of your best imagination.

It was seriously just so blazingly orange and bright that in my friend's shot of it (which is the photo for this post), it seriously looks like a sunrise. Granted, it didn't look quite that brilliant in person, but it honestly wasn't that far off, altogether. As we hiked back down, sometimes the moon would come out from behind a cliff or tree, and it would feel like an officer had pulled us over and was shining his exceedingly bright light on us. It was just one of those indescribable scenes, honestly.

And boy did I feel the soreness and tiredness the next morning. Not only did we get home at 1 AM (we started at 6:30), but we hiked well over 10 miles of steep ups and downs (almost 3000 foot elevation gain) with some awkward, gravely slopes, sometimes. And yet, (given a few days to recover), I would totally do it all over again. As much as I'm guilty of forgetting it, I can't deny that hikes like this remind me that sometimes in life, there are hard things we face that we don't necessarily have to do, but we choose to do them, anyway, because the reward is just so worth it. And with a hike like this one, even in spite of the snake scares and rocky trails, that moonrise was a more glorious scene than I could've anticipated.

I guess that's why we go on hikes and challenge ourselves in various ways that don't always make sense to others- it's a stark reminder to ourselves that we can do hard things and that we can keep on going in spite of the challenges and difficulties. There's wisdom to consider in all things, of course, and one should not run faster than they have strength. But I'm glad for challenges that I face, and especially for those which end up manifesting a very fine reward. Perhaps, one day, all challenges will. Until next time, see ya!