My #wednesdaywalk share, as inspired by 
The days of Christmas have come and gone for the new year…and for us, it wasn’t much fun. We had big plans to have an extended Christmas together, with my direct family, for the first time in years. The plan was to have dinner at my mom and dad’s on Christmas Eve, then have everyone over to our house on Christmas for some drinks and ham sandwiches…and then everyone got sick. I managed to get food poisoning from (I think) a shrimp cocktail…my nieces managed to get fevers…and my brother got the flu. Well, thanks a lot universe…Christmas was a hot mess of disappointment this year.
So with everyone in a foul mood and folks feeling stir crazy, I needed to get out of the house. In a hurry…and once the food poisoning passed, I decided to “get crazy” and go bushwhacking.
Now, this wasn’t bushwhacking per se. It is more in line with a book I borrowed from our public library titled “Bushwhacking: How to Get Lost in the Woods and Write Your Way Out.” One of the key tenants of the book is summed as such:
Each chapter of the book connects a specific outdoor adventure with a related insight about writing, such as embracing uncertainty, stepping outside one's comfort zone, and finding inspiration in the unexpected.
I couldn’t have said it any better, Bard! So off the beaten path I went and wandered in the misty flatlands of the La Crosse River Marsh on trails in an attempt to get over all the disappointment back at home. The area ahead that day would be all new experiences for me.
Now there is something to be said for finding uncertainty in the most familiar of places. I’ve run, biked, hiked, photographed (on numerous times!), walked, family walked, played hide and seek…so many things in this marshland I’ve grown up with. Yet walking out on a trail off the main trails…I felt it. The anxiety of the unknown. The area I was in wasn’t in the middle of the Amazon or Alaska, but less than 2 miles off of a main highway. Still, the feeling of “stepping outside of one’s comfort zone” was certainly there.
And in retrospect, I enjoyed it!
Sure, it wasn’t a life-changing event, but every step I took into an area I wasn’t familiar with, I felt some sense of fear or worry. It was an odd experience to have…the feeling of wanting to turn back for some unknown reason. Yet I pushed on and got a few photos to share from that day. How is that for a holiday bushwhacking experience?
Thanks for checking out my #wednesdaywalk share. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday week as well!