It is Sabbath afternoon here at Southern Adventist University right now. I went on a backpacking trip today, I was going to leave yesterday, afternoon, but since I was going by myself, I didn't really have the umpph to do it, so I went to bed early and left this morning. Now it is late afternoon Saturday, and I'm back in my dorm room. I was a rather interesting experience for me. I can't remember the last time when I went off just with myself for an extended period of time. I didn't know where I was going, but I knew I was going into Georgia, trying to find some mountains that weren't too far away, because I started the journey with an empty tank of gas. (I forgot to fill up Friday.) I didn't really find mountains, but down here it's kind of hard to tell if something is a mountain, or just hill or ripple in the earth's surface. Finally I pulled over to the side of the road and started my trek. I started off walking down some CSX railroad tracks that I happened upon. I found 3 twenty gauge shotgun shells and I lined them up on the track so that the conductor of the next train that came through could break the monotony of driving the train with something more exciting like squishing shotgun shells.

After I had trudged along the tracks for a good bit, I decided to go offtrack into the thicket. Right off the tracks I got caught in a thorn bush that refused to let me go. Finally I loosed myslef and started off through something that looked like a tree farm. I was quite jumpy and paranoid the whole time I was out ther, because I kept stumbling upon four-wheeler tracks. Periodically I would come across fences and no trespassing signs. Since I wasn't sure which side of the fence the signs were referring to, I played it safe and just went straight through.

At last I saw what resmbled a small mountain ahead,but just as I come to the base of it, there lay before me a raging stream of murky water.  There was a four-wheeler track runnig next to the river, and I kept thinking that I heard something coming and would jump behind trees bushes and the like. Nothing ever came, so I finally cranked up the courage to try and ford the river. I rolled up my pant legs and stepped in...The freezing water quickly helped me decide that I really didn't want to climb any mountains today. So I u-turned and headed back into the thicket. Pretty soon I found a dry river bed inthe middle of the woods with a big old oak growing out of the bank. (I like to think that it was oak, but in reality I don't know what it was; it did have a lot of vines growing up it though.) I curled up beside the oak and pulled out my Bible. I got through about 1/4 of the book of Acts when I got hungry, so I pulled out my vittles. I had some sprouted wheat bread that I bought  at the caf. and some honey Stephanie had given me for Christmas. I'd also purchased some fresh squeezed peanut butter at the VM, but I had apparently forgotten it in my room. I had some Doritos though some granola bars and some pepper jack cheese, and some dried apples. I ended up making a small fire and propping my knife on top of it with some cheese onthe knife to melt it. Then I lathered it on the bread. I did the same thing with th chips, except that I put the chips straight on the fire; made a pleasent crisp burnt taste.

Though whole time I was out there I noticed the wildlife especially the birds a lot more than I would have with other people. There were woodpeckers with bright red heads, robins, jays, and brilliantly crimson cardinals. There were also little tiny spiders that I kep finding crawling over me. Every now and again, something would startle the birds (probably me on my harmonica) and they would all fly away.

I made it through the better part of Acts before I decided to head back the find the car. When I arrived back at the tracks, the  place where I had placed the shotgun shells was just smeared melted yellow plastic; I didn't even see the metal casings anywhere. I guess he really had fun with those ones. I was almost to my car when I found another shotgun shell and odd fruits that looked like small yellow tomatos.

I was anticipating getting lost on the way back, but I found my way with out any problems. I even found a nice parking spot near my door into the dorm.

Happy Sabbath