(written on the 25th from notes taken previously)
I woke up today, a lot on my mind.
I wandered around a little bit, took some pictures.
But my mind is elsewhere…
I think we ate breakfast, and then we headed over to the dock where boats launch, so my mom could wash her glasses in the lake.
I’m just… not mentally present.
We headed south east back down highway 16 that runs between the mountain ranges to the east and west.
It was a gorgeous drive, and we stopped to take pictures gazillions of times.
But I was struggling.
I think my spine issues were exacerbated significantly because of the positions I was in for most of the night while Nancy and I were talking and spending time together.
So physically I wasn’t doing very well. And mentally I was not really present. And emotionally I was crushed.
Unfortunately, that led to me being quick to frustration and irritation and discouragement.
Not that those things are to blame. Clearly, I’m to blame for my own feelings and How I react to them.
It just was a bad day for me today.
I spent most of the drive with my headphones in listening to stuff on YouTube, including a bunch of church stuff.
I don’t think it’s possible for me to disbelieve in the existence of God. Doubt, for sure. But actually disbelieve? I don’t think that’s possible for me.
But I’ve been so angry with him and in so much pain.
The circumstances like these bring everything to the forefront because… my trust in God and my experiences that I felt like I’ve had with God are much of the reason I find myself where I am right now.
I want that relationship with God back. I want that closeness. I saw it in Nancy. I miss it.
But I’m just so afraid that his path for me is going to be A solitary lonely one for the rest of my life.
It’s just so soul-crushing to me.
I choke up, tears welling up as I think and right about it.
I’m tired of being alone.
I just want that I can melt together with as one with and with whom I can spend the rest of my life going all over the world trying to lift people.
Around lunch time, We stopped on the side of the highway for me to take a picture of an absolutely gorgeously framed Vista.
My mom started chatting with an older lady who was out walking a dog, and she showed us around the river area to a beautiful little spot down on the banks.
Super beautiful. Deep turquoisey green water, craggy mountains and then distance, bridge over the river.
It was just beautiful.
Since it was lunch time, when we parted ways with the older lady, we went back to the highway and brought Rover off the highway, and over to the bridge–parking on the shoulder just before the bridge.
My mom Made us sandwiches, and we walked on a little path maybe 100 yards downriver to a little spot where there was a fallen tree my mom could sit on , and we could overlook the beautiful Fraser River, Mt. Goslin behind us, and I don’t know the names of the craggy peaks in front of us.
It was simply beautiful there.
By that time of the day, it was time for us to be figuring out where we were going to sleep. I was looking online at the recreation site locations, but I wasn’t having much luck with anything nearby where we were, nor where we were going.
We were getting ready to head to Alberta, and Alberta doesn’t have anywhere near as many places to stay–at all, let alone for free. So we started heading east just… because. It was the direction we were going, so we might as well make progress going that direction.
As we were winding around the road through the canyon between the mountain ranges, there were gorgeous vistas everywhere, but as we came around the bend heading east, Mount Robson seemingly jumped out from nowhere, an absolutely massive mountain that seemed like one huge Rock from top to bottom.
It was absolutely amazing to behold. The picture doesn’t do it justice. It was spectacular.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a rest area right at that spot, so we pulled over. Trees had grown up, so you couldn’t get the full view of Robson without walking back down the highway to get a better angle, wish I did, taking a bunch of pictures.
We continued on, heading toward Mount Robson, stopping and taking beautiful pictures along the way.
One of the challenges and frustrations of the day had been that the charge cable that I had been using to charge my phone had stopped charging, and I hadn’t realized it until it was too late. I had had it plugged in all day, but my phone was getting drained quickly because of all the photos and videos.
By the time we had gotten to that area at Mount Robson, I was having to plug it in just to be able to take a handful of pictures without risking it dying.
But because of how much power it takes to take pictures, each time I went to take more pictures, the charge cable couldn’t keep up.
I was already having a really rough day. And then it was crappy to be in such a beautiful place and to be in such an ugly place inside, but that’s where I was.
Supremely focused on the negative, instead of seeing all the beauty and being able to enjoy it.
I had parked Rover on the side of the road, hiked down through the trees and brush to get to the river bank, so I could get a picture of Mount Robson with the river in the picture at the same time.
I love pictures like those, with the river going off toward The mountain in the distance.
But with my brain almost completely negative, and with what seemed like just about everything going sideways today, it culminated in my phone dying completely, despite being connected to a portable charger, literally seconds before I noticed a wolf on the far side of the river.
I frantically tried to charge get some charge into the phone, but it was dead dead.
I watched the wild tearing at something, I’m guessing a bone, stepping on one end while pulling at it with its teeth.
Something like that, at least.
And then I saw another wolf that I hadn’t noticed before that was lying down right at the edge of the high water line where the brush began. I only noticed it, because it was pretty much directly behind the other one in line of sight, and I saw it stand up.
Such a cool experience to see that in the wild.
I turned And headed back to the car, wanting to Tell my mom about it and also frantically hoping that I could find some way to get a picture.
Unfortunately, by the time I got back, both wolves were gone.
😞
It’s hard for me to see much outside the negative these days.
There are lots of amazing things, lots of beauty all around.
But I just find myself struggling, weighed down because of how hard everything has been. And then even in the beautiful times, I can’t really enjoy it all because of the pain and the fear and the anger and the loneliness.
We ended up giving up trying to find a place to stay for free and stayed at a campground by Mount Robson.
Apparently, today was the last day the campground was open for the season, so we just squeaked in.
After getting parked, we walked down to the river in the hopes of seeing wildlife, but no dice.
That particular campground had a shower, so my mom got her first shower since my sister’s place in Washington, so that was nice. It was even a hot shower, except for the fact that the first shower had sprayed all over the place, getting her clothes wet, so her hot shower turned into a bit of a fiasco with cold, wet clothes.
😕
Gratefully, Rover has a good heater.
I stayed up a bit later to try and catch up on journal entries, which is why the ones that I wrote back on the 13th have some overtones of how I was feeling at the time even though they were posts for nearly 2 weeks previous.
We had neither cell nor internet at the Robson campground, so I set the posts that I had written to Auto publish the next day at certain times when I expected that we would be back in connection with the internet.
And that was the day. Super rough one for me today, just about all the way around.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 