(written on the 24th from notes taken previously)
In the morning, I had a bit on my mind, so I walked around a bit and decided to walk down to the river–bear spray in hand.
I walked and walked and walked. I thought about taking a bath, but it was cold, and the sun hadn’t poked its head over the hill yet, so the river was in the shade, so I wasn’t so keen on getting freezing cold without at least some sun.
After getting back to our campsite, we did our normal morning things and then headed out for the day. I had pretty much all but written off Nancy as not wanting to join us for the places we were going.
As we were heading out for the day, we stopped at the toilets and trash can right across from where she was camped. I had heard her dog barking in the morning, and she was out with her dog, and started walking towards us, but it seemed like when she saw me, she turned and walked back to her van.
That sort of solidified what I had thought I was reading from her.
When my mom got out of the bathroom, she went over to say goodbye to her, letting her know that we weren’t going to be going to Helmcken Falls first after all.
Instead, we were going to check out Dawson Falls first, the Falls that we had tried to check out last night But hadn’t found.
So we went our separate ways, and I figured that was the end of it, though honestly, I was a bit bummed. She seemed like a super cool woman, and I would have loved to have spent more time with her.
So Mom and I headed over to Dawson Falls, and this time, we were able to better understand how to get to the falls, which trail to take, etc., so we started our walk down the trail, with me being grateful for Canada and their pit toilets that are absolutely everywhere.
Thank you, Canada!
And not only do they have pit toilets everywhere, but every single one has toilet paper and hand sanitizer.
Go Canada! 😎🍁🇨🇦
The Falls were beautiful, reminding me a fair bit of a waterfall that I saw in Michigan on a road trip way back in 2010, except this Falls was regular colored, and the falls in Michigan were sort of a root beer color because of all the tannin in the water.
Anyway, we walked to the first lookout spot where you can see the falls from A few hundred yards, or so, away. Dawson Falls is a really really wide one, probably 200 plus ft wide and probably 40 or 50 ft tall. So it’s a biggie.
After taking some pictures at overlook spot, we walked down the trail that takes you right next to the Falls. Being right next to it reminded me a lot of being on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, with the water water curling over the edge at a fair bit of speed and crashing down.
Did I mention I love waterfalls? 🙃
I love waterfalls. 😊
My mom and I took some pictures, and a beautiful rainbow appeared in the mist of the falls, so I took more pictures.
And then what was my surprise but that Nancy showed up with her German Shepherd.
😶
That was a bit of a shocker.
So we started talking again, and I took some pictures for her. And we chatted a little bit more. I was a little nervous because, well, I tend to be nervous around women I find attractive (although the nerves have gone down over the years I think, maybe because I’ve sort of written all that stuff off. You can only have so many nerves when you don’t see opportunity anyway.
Although, I am tired of walking the path that, at least the best of my understanding, was the path God was guiding me down.
Very tired of it.
I’m lonely. Very very lonely.
Still, it was nice to be just interacting with somebody. Most of my female friends are all married, and that completely changes the dynamic. I don’t really have friendships anymore with women because nearly all of them are married. And I haven’t really made friends since moving to Arkansas because… Well, I just work all the time. I buried myself in work because of the path I was following and how painful and difficult it’s been. Working all the time is pretty much all I could do to even have some semblance of sanity.
I don’t know exactly how it happened, But my mom and Nancy started talking about spiritual type things and ended up talking about the LDS church And spiritual things and… all sorts of stuff.
I being where I’m at, not really in the church, not really out of the church, just sort of… hung around.
I mostly played fetch with Nancy’s dog and hung around on the periphery, only occasionally returning to make a comment about whatever particular thing they were talking about at the time.
We walked back to the first overlook spot, and my mom and Nancy kept talking and talking, and I… kept playing fetch with the dog. 😅
Again, periodically, I would interject something into the conversation, but mostly it was just them going back and forth and back and forth.
Nancy had a gazillion questions, and my mom just kept explaining and answering and explaining and answering.
At some point, I noticed that there was some trash just beyond the railing at the edge of the drop off above the river. It was probably maybe a 30-ft drop off come all together before hitting the slope that then went down to the river. The first drop was about 10 ft, but then you’d probably drop another 15 or 20 after that because the landing spot on the first 10 ft was at a really steep angle.
And there was little me, climbing around the railing To go grab the piece of trash so that it wouldn’t be in other people’s views.
It’s stinky for me to arrive at a place that’s an absolutely gorgeous Vista, and then see trash at my feet, or trash in the Vista, so I try and clean places up at least a little bit, and so I crawled around the outside of the railing where there was probably a foot or two of space before the drop off, but when I reached down to grab the piece of trash, my cell phone slipped out of my pocket and tumbled over the edge of the cliff.
😶
😅
Oops.
I came back from around the fence, and I think Nancy asked me what I was going to do, and I said that I was going to go down there and find my phone, To which my mom replied for me to be careful, to which I replied something like “hey, it’s me!”
I remembered that there had been what looked like a path down from the main trail that looked like it went down to the water. I hoped that maybe I could get down to the river’s edge, and then scoot myself along the river’s edge until I got to the cliff where I had dropped my phone off.
I found the path, followed It down and found that it did indeed go to the water’s edge.
And good gravy, was it absolutely gorgeous there on the water’s edge. The little path came out right at the base of the waterfall, with the water thundering around you. It was such a beautiful view.
I thought to grab for my phone, but… well… That was the reason I was down there in the first place. I didn’t have My phone. It was at the bottom of a small cliff.
😅
So, lamenting that I didn’t have a good camera to take pictures of the gorgeous Falls, Knowing that my phone just took a 30-ft tumble off a cliff, and was already damaged to the point that just dropping it out of my pocket onto the ground would often pop the entire screen off the phone itself, I was preparing myself for the near certain reality that my camera and phone were going to be inoperable.
I was enjoying the adventure, though, crawling along the side of the river, through trees, trying to jump across sections where the water was far enough apart that I was likely going to get my foot wet, and did in one place. Fortunately, the speed at which I was able to get my foot back out of the water after having splashed down, mostly displacing all the water, meant that my foot didn’t get super wet.
At length, I managed to make it all the way back to the bottom of the cliff and started looking around for my phone, or at least the pieces of it, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I had seen it Hit that part that was about 10 ft down before crashing down the rest of the way, but the rest of the drop was out of view from where I had been crouching down to pick up that piece of trash, so I didn’t know exactly where it had landed.
I looked and looked and started to worry a little bit more. I at least wanted to be able to get the leftovers of the phone, so I could get my pictures And videos off of it.
It wouldn’t have been the first time that I had my phone bite the dust in the middle of a beautiful trip. In fact, I wouldn’t be the first time that this phone bit the dust in the middle of a beautiful trip, having smashed the screen beyond use in the middle of a river just above a raging waterfall on the west central side North Island in New Zealand.
And then… there it was!
It was a little harder to see because I think it was face down, so the shiny side was down to the ground.
Miraculously, the phone was in one piece!!!
😶
I expected to screen to be mangled, but it didn’t really look any different, that I can recall, then it did before I dropped it.
Really?!?!
Could it actually have survived?!?!?!
I pressed the power button with a tad bit of anxiousness.
The screen lit up.
It accepted my security swipe.
My mom and Nancy looked over the railing and down the cliff at me, as I wiped off the phone, turned on the camera, and took a picture of them looking down below at me.
Can you believe it?!?!
My phone still works. 🤯
It took me a little bit longer getting back than it did getting to my phone because I stopped to take a bunch of pictures and videos of that absolutely gorgeous spot at the base of the falls.
I now absolutely love Dawson Falls.
After making it back to where my mom and Nancy were, we chatted for a bit, and I think my mom and Nancy kept talking gospel and other things.
From there, we started heading back to the parking lot, where Mom and Nancy kept talking, and I periodically interjected as before, And playing lots of fetch with the dog.
Eventually, I just joined the conversation all together, at least for the most part, and we talked and talked until the sun went down. Then we all got inside Rover and kept on talking for a while, Nancy and I sitting on my bed, my mom sitting on hers, and Nancy’s dog sleeping in the aisle way.
We ate dinner, and I think one of Nancy’s friends told her that the Aurora Borealis might be visible, so I peeked my head out the door. We had all been huddled up in the van with the engine running and the heat on because it had gotten super cold, but I peeked my head out the door, looked up in the sky and saw what I was pretty certain must be the Aurora Borealis!
I’ve always wanted to see it. Ever since I first heard of it, I’ve wanted to see it. It was super faint, just a purple Haze in the sky, with lighter and darker streaks.
It wasn’t like the crazy multicolored spectacles that you see in pictures, but it was still super cool to be able to experience it for the first time in my life. 😁
What an awesome experience. 😊
I took some pictures with my camera that make the Northern lights look a heck of a lot brighter and more spectacular than what you can actually see with the naked eye, but it was still cool to see what we could see with our actual eyes.
We started getting cold again being out there watching the Aurora Borealis, and so we started talking about where we were going to stay the night. I had found a recreation site that seemed like it might be good, but it was a ways away, and it wasn’t a guarantee, and after a bit of conversation and discussion, we decided to go back to the same campground.
I was a little concerned about it because of the whole $20 thing. No one had come to collect any money from us in the morning, so it seemed like it was free, like we had been told, but the other people in the campground had been paying, so my little conscience was… uncomfortable.
In the end, though, we decided just to go back to where we had been, and we stayed at the same campsite, site number 46, that we had stayed in last night. This time, however, Nancy joined us, parking right alongside us in the same campsite.
Awesome day.
Gorgeous waterfall. Wonderful new person to spend time with. The Northern lights.
Just… awesome.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 