Hornets!

I survived! The solo was so awesome; it was something I really needed. It felt so good to just be ALONE! Away from the “pack”. I needed to give God all the undivided attention and time that He so rightly deserves.

There are so many times when I’ve put God aside because I’m too busy, but, doing my solo, I felt so close to Him. That constant fellowship was a feast for my hungry soul, which was in desperate need of spiritual food. I almost—actually, I do—wish I could have stayed another day, being that I enjoyed my time so immensely. But we must go onward, upward, and outward!

When we all got back to the campsite of our “fearfully fearless” leaders, we ate a hearty breakfast—and, boy, do I love blueberry pancakes. Our group got back before Jeff and Jenny’s group, so we left earlier to spread us apart. We hiked for a good fifteen to twenty minutes before we came to a stream, which we had to cross.

 Some were crossing and others were on the side waiting when, all of a sudden, Sarah started screaming. She was stomping and waving her arms frantically. I was nearest to her, and rushed over, thinking maybe there’s a snake—but Sarah was being attacked by angry, vicious hornets!

I started running the other way, but not fast enough, for one of those angry little buggers nailed me in the right calf. Ouch! All my bad memories and experiences came rushing back. I yelled at everyone else to clear out and high-tail it out of there. And, as it was, only Sarah and I were victims. Sarah got stung four times, twice on each calf, just once for me. We lost a half an hour of travel time, but what can you do about things like that?

The hike itself was so BEAUTIFUL! I loved every step of the way, even with the pain of the sting still lingering. I thought to myself, coming from a very large city and seeing all the millions of houses crammed together, it’s so nice and refreshing to know that there is some untouched and unspoiled forest-land to fully enjoy. During the hike we saw many deer, and boy, are they beautiful. Further on, we came across the bones of an animal who we think may have been a small raccoon or ‘possum. It was so neat. I took the skull for a souvenir.

We finally ended our hike for today near the Williams’ house. Dan, Eric, Jim, and I went exploring up and down the stream nearby in our now-wet sneakers. We found large crayfish. After dinner we boiled them till they were a gorgeous red and shelled and consumed them. Yum! Boy, were they delicious. They were so good that the four of us and Jeff and Oliver went to look for more as a late snack. We found sixty small crayfish and feasted on them later with Tabasco sauce (thanks to Jeff). They were really good, but not too filling. The raccoons, I’m sure, will have a feast of all the crayfish scraps we threw away.

But, anyway, it’s late and I’m real tired, so I’m off to “La-La Land”. Goodnight, y’all!