I dragged myself out of bed and in to the cold morning air to see another sunrise. It was certainly a beautiful sight, however the peacefulness I was looking forward to was absent with how many people had decided to watch sunrise. The group of Asian people that had followed me to my viewpoint had grown each day and today there were somewhere around 15 or 20 of them. I quickly scrabbled away to go to the next rocky point, wanting solitude; I didn’t find it. The rocky ledge I next went out on had a beautiful view still, of course, however the huge group of people that I had left behind blocked some of it as they snapped photos and spoke noisily. I couldn’t blame them, they were just having fun, I am sure if my friends were with me we’d be a noisy bunch as well, however it definitely put a dampener on my attempt at a peaceful, meditative morning. I left earlier than normal, around 7:15 am, unable to handle all the people any more and Luna was a little nervous on that ledge, so I wanted to relieve her stress and head out. My next stop was the showers, not wanting to feel greasy and disgusting all day. I was at the market for 8 am to purchase a couple things, then headed back to the shower/laundry building to use the wifi and charge up my phone. Next, I went to book two more nights at the campsite, unfortunately, my spot, which I love, was booked, but I was able to get one a little ways away from it that is fairly good as well. What I look for in campsites is vicinity to the bathroom, I love being very close to it, but not so close that I may be disturbed frequently by people going to and fro, then I look for evenness of the ground, when sleeping in a car this matters a lot as it can be a matter of sleeping with one side of my body lower than the other, or with my legs way lower than my head; my next thing in hot areas is shade, my first campsite was wonderfully shaded. Once I put my site cards up, I headed to the visitors centre parking lot, expecting a call from Trish. She called right as I was pulling in to the parking lot and it was great to chat with her and catch up on things. Not wanting to go back to the crowds that had gathered, I went to my new campsite to hang out for awhile, journalling and reading. Awhile later, I headed for a walk through the woods to the rim. I allowed Luna to take me for this walk, stopping to sniff wherever she desired and for however long, this tested me social anxiety whenever people began catching up to us as we were stopped at the side of the path, but she enjoyed it. We stopped for awhile to take in the view, I threw a small stick in the air for her to catch as she so loves snapping things up as they’re thrown in the air. I practiced “drop it” with her, I’ve attempted to teach her it in the past with little success, however now that she understands “leave it” so well, she seems to be a pro at “drop it”, clever girl! Every time I asked her “drop it”, she’d look at me and drop the stick immediately, of course I rewarded her with tasty treats, praise and more play.
I watched sunset and it was lovely, Luna seemed unimpressed with the heights and desperate for dinner, coming over to lick my face and nudge me with her nose, then heading back towards the rim. I finally gave in and headed back. As I walked back, a young man and woman both a little older than I wanted to say hi to Luna, I complied and then the guy began asking all sorts of questions, first about Luna, then about me, getting deeper and deeper as he talked. It was a lovely conversation for awhile, they were very nice people, he had been in the military, she was a trauma nurse. It was really nice until he brought religion in to it, they did a little prayer for me, invited me to dinner or even to stay at their rooms that night, I thanked them, but declined. We said goodbye and they headed the way I was going, so I turned off as to not have the awkwardness of going the same way. I waited for a minute on the other side, then they came around the corner and got talking again. That was when they really got deep in to their religious speech, giving me a bracelet with bible things on it and having me read these bits from the bible and tell them what I thought it meant. They offered me a bible that I graciously refused, then asked if I would confess that Jesus was saviour. I told them I was not ready to do that and they were chill about it all. Why must nice people ruin perfectly lovely conversations with religion?! I am touched that people want to ‘save’ me and all, but I am very happy with my non-religious status and quite adamant not to change it. I then headed over to the wifi area for a bit before heading back to my campsite. A fox ran alongside the road for a moment as I entered the campground, then a mouse dashed away from my oncoming headlights at my campsite, so many animals here looking for tidbits humans have left behind.
Luna had walked out there to explore and when she turned around she saw me with the camera so figured she'd better stay put while I took the photo, despite being a little nervous, she certainly didn't have to, but what a great dog she is!
Luna was actually a little scared of this statue, I was going to take a different photo of her with it, but she didn't want to be too close to it, she was happier a little ways a way, like this!
Playtime.
My little model.
No comments:
Post a Comment