Vacation

Why do you go on vacation? To get away from it all? To see or do it all? There are lots of possible answers. Mine would vary from time to time. I do like to go places and do/see things, but I find the most rewarding vacations are those that allow me to view my life from a different perspective. As I sat on the cabin deck this past week with my extended family, we would occasionally comment on various birds or chipmunks we would see (or the hornet nest Lindsay discovered under the deck on the last day). Almost every time, somebody would say "I can't see what you are describing." The reason was the vantage point. When looking from different vantage points, we see different things. That is obvious and simple. Why then, do we have so much trouble applying that to larger life issues? Sometimes you can see things in my life that I miss or I may see things in your life you never saw before. I get a taste of that each time that we visit Vogel State Park in the north Georgia mountains. My mom rents two cabins to accommodate my brother's family and my family, including in-laws and potential in-laws. We get to spend time catching up on both mundane and large issues in each others' lives. Because we are family, we tend to question and comment more freely than you would with strangers or casual friends. And we see where other family members have grown. You miss that sometimes when you are together every day. We also get to evaluate our own growth and growth opportunities as we tell our story of "how things have been". I will share some of the beauty of the area in posts over the next few days. But for now, here are a few pictures of one aspect of the past week (plus two days) for me.

Why pictures of two guys on bicycles? These pictures represent two brothers who have passed the half-century mark and who refuse to concede anything to the aging process. My mom made the effort to drive ahead of us and take pictures as we pushed ourselves through self-induced physical difficulty on our way to accomplishing a goal. The short-term goal? To ride bikes from our cabin at Vogel State Park up Blood Mountain and back--about a 7 mile round trip. We did this several mornings and endured the long 4-5 mph climb up the mountain in order to experience the thrill of coming back down at speeds topping 35 mph. The long-term goal? I hope we can realize the possibility of being fit regardless of age and refuse to conform to the norm of accepting weight gain, loss of mobility, and declining health as inevitable. Thanks are due to Keith for posing as my conscience and leading the running and cycling activities. I also thank those nameless strangers that I boldly made conversation with who were cycling all the way to Brasstown Bald and climbing to the highest point in Georgia. That is so far beyond my capabilities that it is difficult to comprehend. But now I know that otherwise normal people actually do this. If they can do it.......?