America the Beautiful.

 

"I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom, for me and you

And I think to myself
What a wonderful world."

Although I would never normally discuss this, but today I will. I am about as much of an outdoorsman as someone living in a high rise in New York City. I didn’t grow up camping, exploring the wilderness, or venturing beyond cement—-and probably never will.

I think a lot of it comes from my fear of snakes and the limited experiences I have had with them. In St. Louis, and definitely in the area where I grew up, there were snakes;  the developers of the area pretty much took over their land and they were not going to have any of that. One time when I was leaving our house, I was about to step down and there greeting me was a big snake. I am partially (only partially) ashamed to admit that I screamed. I didn’t think anyone heard me, but I was wrong. I didn’t live that one down for years. 

Do I care? Absolutely not.

This fear went on for many years and is still there today. I have tried to work on it, for example, I did go river rafting on the Colorado River with clients a number of years ago—and sure enough someone when someone was off “having a talk with the man,” they saw a rattle snake. I could not wait to get back on the raft and get out of there. That night, as we were sleeping under the stars, I felt something move across my chest—at least I thought I did. You probably think I am going to say it was a “snake”—nope, it was a scorpion. I only know it because the next morning you could see its pattern in the sand. 

Did I mention I’m not an outdoorsman?

Move forward to a couple of years ago and being invited to going camping and hiking in Utah with the editor of the magazine I worked on. When I got done reading the email inviting me, I joked with my wife…”Can you believe they invited me?” She said, “You need to go.” I laughed and said, “there is no way.” So probably 5 months later there I was….getting on board a Southwest flight heading for Salt Lake. I literally was praying something would cause a cancellation but no such luck.

It turned out to be an incredible experience. The part that saved it was…we stayed on a horse farm and they had toilets and showers. It was like the Holiday Inn of camping/hiking. To this day I treasure the experience….one day I will return and I will likely stay at the same place—you don’t want to ruin a good thing.

The photo above was taken at Arches National Park. Never in my life have I seen such incredible scenery—-that is until we hiked in other parts of the area where the beauty continued. It was then that I “thought to myself, ‘What a Wonderful World.’”

Thanks for stopping by.