Find Your Happy Place: Happy Trails!

I love spontaneous and I love hiking so when the opportunity to combine the two on a backpacking trip to the Ozark National Forest presented itself, I jumped at the chance! The original plan was to hike a short trail in nearby Arkansas since the weather was so nice. That plan turned into a backpacking trip and a much longer hike. Unfortunately the trail we planned to hike was closed due to "extreme conditions". When I asked what that meant I was reminded that we are in an extreme drought. Ah. How could I have forgotten that? We were then redirected to the Ozark National Forest. Hmmmm. Thinking the forest might be affected too, but what the heck. We wanted to hike and we'd just carry in water. So, off we went.

This was the sun setting as we started off on the trail...the path was somewhat steep and really rocky but it was still a path.

That path got steadily steeper. Guess that's what happens when you are climbing a mountain!

The sun setting was beautiful and definitely distracted from the uphill climb! We just kept going...and going...and going uphill.

Loved the way the sunlight danced on the trees.

We made camp in a small clearing and just kicked back and enjoyed nature. This is what I love about hiking! No cell phones or tv...just the sounds of the animals and insects. The stars through the trees were spectacular!

Morning brought the sounds of thunder and potential raindrops so in the darkness of pre-dawn we packed everything up and headed out. Things look a bit different in a dark forest. Finally we decided to wait until the sun came up and see if we could find the path again. Alas...we had wondered in the darkness a little to far and the path could not be found.

Thankfully we had marked the location of the truck with my handy, dandy "Find My Car" app. (Downloaded after an "exciting" post-game search for the car in Norman last year) So, off we went. No trail, fewer rocks and mostly downhill. Sticker bushes were plentiful though and I was painfully reminded of why pants are somewhat a necessity when hiking!

Sunrise in the forest in a word...beautiful.

I was sure missing that rocky path about now...

As the crow flies we were only minutes from the truck but as the snake wiggled it was about a 2 hour bushwhack.

And just when we thought never see it...

It magically appeared...the truck!!! We aren't really sure how we managed to circle around and find it without ever crossing the road or finding the path again but we were pretty glad to see it!