Vacation Part One

Around two weeks ago, I went hiking with my family in the Great Smoky Mountains.

I'm not exactly sure what lead our family to go to the Smokies. In the months leading up to August, my brother Charlie and my mom would occasionally talk about how cool it would be to go there, but I never really knew why.Perhaps a friend told them, or my brother watched some YouTube vlogger go there. I don't know.

One day in late July, my dad announced that we were going to the Smokies. Even though I consider myself to be fond of nature and hiking, I wasn't particularly ecstatic about going on vacation this time. For me, it was the worst possible time to be out of town, as I was going to miss a whole week of pre-season soccer practices, which probably wouldn't make the coach (or the team) very happy. If that wasn't bad enough, I had done the exact same thing last year when my family went on a vacation to Madeline Island in Wisconsin.

Regardless, there was no way to weasel myself out of this trip. So, two days and 600 miles later, I was in the mountains. A lot of people who visit the mountains will just drive to a couple peaks, take some pictures, and leave the same day. My family was slightly more serious. My dad spent a few years in Nepal and India hiking in the Himalayas, and he wanted to give me and my brothers a little  taste of what that was like on this trip- one day, we even hiked 13 miles in the rain on a steep trail, which left me sore for the next week. But that's another story.

The first walk we took was on Charlie's Bunion trail. Round trip, the hike was around eight miles. The trail started out fairly flat and boring, at least from my point of view. My dad would probably scold me at being ignorant of all the fascinating rocks and plants around me. Anyways, instead of looking at the nature surrounding me, I put my body on autopilot and took the time to get lost in my thoughts. I did this quite a lot during our trip, maybe even too much now that I think about it. But at the same time, I think hikes are perfect for just relaxing and thinking, at least as much as you can while walking. There are no distractions, and the fresh, cool mountain air feels great. I'm not going to say exactly what was running through my head; I'll leave that for an essay.

While the trail was pretty boring at first, things got a lot more interesting after a half mile or so- in good ways and bad (but mostly good). Firstly, the areas became really beautiful. There were distinct areas occupied by one certain species of pine tree that, when the sun shined through, looked almost mystical. There was also a lot of exposed rock, which, with the help of frequent precipitation, transformed into green beds of moss. However, the most beautiful part of this particular walk (besides the awesome view at the end of the trail) was the path itself. It rained about half the time when we were on our walk, and while I'm not a huge fan of walking in wet clothes, the rain transformed the path into a little stream that flowed over the interesting exposed rock that was the trail. I would have a photo here, but I couldn't take any because it was raining so hard.
 
Despite the discomfort of being rained on and walking in soggy clothes for six miles, this hike was a really cool and unique experience. I saw a lot of interesting natural features that don't exist anywhere in Illinois, and I got a fair bit of exercise too.