Hiking with Rudy

On Memorial Day, I found myself with the car to myself as Jason worked the day shift (instead of the split shift he works on non-holidays). I wanted to go on an adventure, but hesitated to go without a friend. Usually, Mutti or Heidi accompany me on hikes/nature walks, but neither were available to help me satisfy my spontaneous wanderlust. What to do? I finally decided to go with just Rudy and me. As a result, I made several discoveries:

1. Rudy is a great hiking companion.

All the other times I've hiked with him, he's been more like an extension of me instead of a partner. I mostly talked about grown up things with the grown ups I was around, and threw a comment or two in Rudy's direction when it seemed he needed some attention. (Totally callous, I know, but true) This time, my entire attention and conversation was absorbed with Rudy, and for a toddler with a vocabulary under 100 words, he had a lot to say.

2. It's OK to spend 45 minutes in 2 square feet of trail. In fact, it's really enlightening.

This isn't quite the 2 square foot part, but it still holds the same meaning. Here we are just barely past the parking lot of Rock Canyon, and still on the paved path that leads to the actual trail head. Instead of forging straight ahead, Rudy delighted in running up the inclined path, turning on his heals, and barreling down again, yawping with the exhilaration he felt as his speed increased. This repeated over and over until I took it upon myself to explain a key hiking strategy to him. "Rudy," I said, "You're supposed to go up, Up, UP, then DOWN, Down, down, not up, down, up, down, up, down." Then I got to thinking...maybe the up down strategy wasn't so bad, so long as joy is being achieved. Many times life is as series of up downs...seemingly unsuccessful attempts achieve something 'big'. If we get too hung up on the fact that we haven't reached the destination, we'll never be able to enjoy the part of our journey we're in at the moment. Rudy's up down exercise helped me to take a moment and realize that even though we were not yet swallowed up in nature as I wanted to be, the view was still amazing.

You can't see it in this picture, but Rudy is intently watching a snail.

He eventually picked it up and patiently (for an 18 month old) waited for the snail to get brave enough to come back out. It never did, but it was cute to see Rudy trying to coax it out with his little babblings of reassurance.

After giving up on the snail, he moved on to tracking the activity of a rollypolly (or pill bug, as they say here in Utah). He watched that little guy forever, it seemed, even after the insect decided he'd had enough of being observed. The rollypolly scooted under some rocks in the path, but Rudy diligently searched until he found it again. I was impressed at how intently he observed this little patch of the mountain. It made me remember to be in the moment more, instead of always focused on what comes next. (A valuable lesson when in the throws of trying to wean a little boy who is still very happily nursing.) :)

And finally, discovery number 3: Showing admiration is a good thing.

As we neared the end of our hike, we came upon a group of climbers. Rudy, of course, was enthralled-especially by the man who was bouldering (probably 'cause he was constantly jumping off the side of the mountain.) Anyway, there was a little crowd (it was Memorial Day, remember) gathered to watch the climbers. We all thought they were cool, I'm sure, but the only one who expressed it was my little Rudy. As the man would get higher up the rock, Rudy would watch with great anticipation for the ultimate jump off. (I think he believes the whole goal of bouldering is to get as high as you can, so the jump off will be cooler.) Anyway, when the man would jump off the rock, Rudy would shout a great big, drawn out, "Whoaaaaaaa!" Just like he'd been raised by beach bums off the California coast. It was hilarious, but you know what? I think the climber was really soaking up little Rudy's admiration.

Why do we guard ourselves from expressing our thoughts so often? Why not ogle when something cool is going on? Why not comment when you're impressed? I think it'd result in a whole lot more people standing just a bit taller, 'cause a complete stranger thinks they are cool.

So, there you have it. The moments of enlightenment that I am blessed with a the mother of a kid as cool as Rudy is. I think I'll be doing more 'Mama and Me' hikes in the future-and not as a last resort, either. :)