My students are writing an essay in which their assigned task is to arrive at some personally meaningful definition of happiness. I keep thinking that, as a good teacher, I should try to write the essay myself.
It's a difficult topic, and I have many ideas but no single focus for my own answer to the assignment. The last three days--presented below in photos--come as close to a cohesive definition of happiness as I can offer at the moment. Happiness is:
1. experiences, not things
2. experiences that center around nature
3. experiences that center around nature and involve people I love
4. experiences that center around nature, involve people I love, and include a lot of labor
5. experiences that center around nature, involve people I love, include a lot of labor, and require patience
6. experiences that, in addition to all the above, leave me exhausted but satisfied
I keep thinking about all of the people who take vacations in order to do
nothing. In contrast, Rado and I take the kids on vacation in order to spend four days packing, setting up tents, inflating mattresses, gathering kindling, walking for miles, cooking on two tiny burners, taking out ticks, maneuvering dusty clothes, repacking the car, and then unpacking at home again. It sounds a bit crazy, and it looks like it. Yet we do it again and again because something about it feels really good.
The kids get all dusty and disheveled. Rado and I come home smelling like the goblins of campfire. I spend half of the nights sleeping and the other half listening to, and smelling, the forest around me. I wake up, having slept half the night, refreshed in a paradoxical way that makes no sense. I can't wait to get home and take a shower but, as soon as the shower is over, I watch my mind starting to veer towards the next camping or hiking trip. I ask myself why, and I am not sure. It's the pull of the outdoors, and it defies all rationality. I suspect that some of us feel that pull more than others. Otherwise, state and national parks would be overrun.
So with all that said, here is a visual cornucopia of the beauty and lushness that is Henry Coe State Park in spring. We hiked here for the first time
almost exactly four years ago, and we
first camped on Memorial Day 2014. In 2014, it was already so dry in May that we were not permitted to light campfires. We remember the dust and the wind and the unseasonable heat. This year, thanks to the average rains of March, the park is awash in green grass and wildflowers. The temperature at night is not too far from freezing. The days are breezy and sunny instead of hot.
The pictures below follow our three days in chronological order.
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| apparently, Sava used my camera while I was not looking; a good moment of team work |
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| the view from the top of the campground, overlooking the Diablo Range |
Hiking the first day: Springs Trail + Forest Trail Loop (3.7 miles)
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| blue dicks |
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| yellow oak violet? |
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| camp cuisine |
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| the morning view on Day Two |
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| one of several vultures that circled the gulch at the edge of our campsite |
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| our new love seat! favorite acquisition of this camping season |
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| pretty campsite! |
Hiking the second day: Frog Lake via Hobbs Road and Flat Frog Trail (4.5 miles)
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| California poppies |
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| they ran ahead the entire way up and hid in the woods to scare us |
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| manzanita trees everywhere; fun to climb |
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| woodland shooting star |
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| strangest tree ever |
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| frog (bullfrog?) at Frog Lake; we got treated to a chorus of them speaking to each other across the water |
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| see the fish? |
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| red-winged blackbirds |
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| Flat Frog Trail was by far our favorite trail of this trip; forest fairies must live there |
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| I can't get enough of the trees in this park; they bordered and framed our every step |
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| wild iris |
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| the roads not taken |
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| reading time |
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| enjoying the hammock of our "neighbors" |
Our plan is to come back here and backpack with the kids, possibly next spring. The kids seem ready for it, as do we.
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