I got to spend all Thursday morning in the girls band hanging out with them and working on skills. It felt good to be in a band. Then I spent the rest of the day roasting in the ridge vehicle.
Friday I had to drive around to Pine Creek, which was Final D for the week, to meet with rabbitstick. This meant I got to drive across the Verde River, along Fossil Creek, and through the towns of Strawberry, Pine and Payson. I stopped for lunch at an adorable cafe in Pine. I felt a little guilty that I was having a philly cheesesteak while the bands were eating things like rice and lentils.
Saturday I got to explore some jeep trails and actually got a little lost for about a half hour.
When I was trying to get unlost, I had a quarter mile section that I had to reverse the whole way because there was no room for me to turn around. I'm getting pretty good at driving on dirt roads when I have to keep doing maneuvers like that.
Monday got interesting because one of the girls bands stopped hiking in the middle of the wilderness area. Windwalk and I happened to be hiking to some Indian ruins when we got the call. We were within 100 yards of the ruins but had to turn around so I still have never seen them in the seven yeas I've been at Anasazi. I had no idea what to do to help that band so Jeremy and I prayed right there on that hill top. That girls band never did start hiking again that week so three trailwalkers agreed to come out a day early and hike into the band.
Tuesday night I was woken up around 1 am with the news that a youngwalker was having an asthma attack. The band did not have a rescue inhaler so the trailwalker went searching for the other bands to find one. Eventually we had to take him to the hospital. I had quite the time giving directions on how to get from their camp to where I was while I was still half asleep. I ended up hooting to give them directions which didn't really help because I didn't account for it echoing off all the cliffs around us. After the doctor visit, we got back to the Trail just as the sun was coming up. I was grateful it happened at Final D because if it had happened during the hike when there were not bands or myself close by, I don't know how bad it could have gotten. Later that morning, I gave some entertainment to one band when they checked in. I was mostly asleep while talking to the trailwalker and I had to ask them at switchout what I had said. From their account, you would think I had just woken up from surgery or been on drugs.
Wednesday one of the vehicles that was bringing trailwalkers to the Trail broke down in Payson. Thankfully this Final D was only 10 miles away from there and I was able to help bring in the trailwalkers and gear so that we didn't have a late switchout. While driving to Payson, I got to see a bobcat. That was the first one I'd ever seen in the wild and I was surprised at how big it was.
It was interesting for me that even though we had a couple more interesting events take place after Jeremy and I offered our prayers, everything worked out perfectly. Like the fact that the girls band trailwalkers got switched out early which meant that the vehicle they used was back at the office just in time to be sent out to replace the vehicle that broke down in Payson. Or that the second girls band got into Final D right at dusk so that all the rabbitstick trailwalkers could go home. Or that one of the boys bands was delayed just long enough that we could step the girl dawnstar into her family camp and then the boy dawnstar without having to do any additional tactics to keep them from knowing each other was in family camp. Or that because the two trailwalkers went off early it meant we had enough seats in the switchout vehicle for a family to come home early because the mom was badly dehydrated. There were many such instances in the last four day I was on the Trail that showed to me that the Lord was listenening to our prayers even though things continued to be crazy.
Another awakening that I had involved the bugs that were flying into the cabin lights of the ridge vehicle. I thought about how they fly to any source of light even if it means it might kill them like in fires. We could take a lesson from them about our search for light in our life. That just as they will sacrifice anything including their life to be near light rather than stay in the dark, we should desire light and truth just as strongly in our lives as well.
This photo is Squaw Butte under starlight. The cloud looking thing is a band of the Milky Way.
On my drive around from the Squaw Final D to the Pine Final D, I got to go past Fossil Creek. Its an amazing travertine spring. The rocks on the left I jumped off into that beautiful pool which felt phenominal because it was almost 100 degrees that day.
This is one of our intern shadows. She saw this old cottonwood and just had to climb it. I climbed that same cottonwood and took a nap in it almost exactly a year ago.
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