We are not fashioned for fear..

the story of a weekend get away.

Friday as I left work driving down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago I realized something…I needed to get away and just be by myself for awhile. Sometimes life throws things our way and gives us challenges that we need to overcome and this weekend I was determined to overcome it.

So in the five minutes that it took me to drive down Lake Shore Drive I decided that I was going to go camping, but I had no tent and no real destination. I did, however know I wanted to go towards the Mississippi River. So with that in mind I made a quick stop at Target…here I picked up my basic camping supplies – tent, small cooler, some forks for cooking over the fire and one very significant item….

Just a few months ago, facing some personal life changes I ran across a program on television about life’s journey and how to be happy along that journey, with that program there was a book that was advertised. I really wanted to buy it then but never actually took the effort to order it. As I was going to pick up my tent on the shelf that exact book was sitting on top of the exact tent I wanted to by! Mind you, this was months later and not in the “book section” of the store, in pure astonishment I knew there was some kind of supernatural force that put that book there for me to find for this exact trip I was about to take. So that book became part of my camping supplies for the weekend and the staple to why I enjoyed my weekend getaway.

As I head west the sun is starting to set, I have the windows down, and bluegrass playing on Pandora (I felt this was appropriate for my unknown journey I had ahead of me). With any journey you run into obstacles, and with any car trip you can run into glitches with your GPS, at least I do…and that I did. As I pass by Rockford I needed to change to a different highway but my GPS had other plans. With my car’s tank nearly on empty I find myself on extremely steep gravel roads with no one in site for miles and no cell phone service. With life when you feel a little bit lost you just need to keep going knowing that there is something great that is about to happen, so that I did and that great thing was me running across a paved road and with a 50/50 chance of running into civilization in one direction…I turned right.

Finally around 10 pm I arrive at Mississippi Palisades Sate Park, I was able to call ahead and the park ranger was even nice enough to stick around and wait for me to arrive so I could check in for the night. With no power at my camp site I set up my new tent in the headlights of my car while every bug imaginable flies in my face as I disturb the ground that they chose to call home for the night. As I settle in for the night I lay in my new tent for several hours with a flashlight in hand reading my new book that was placed right in front of me at the store. There was absolutely no where else I wanted to be that night, the sound of the crickets singing, the lighting bugs dancing on the outside ceiling of my tent, the faint sound of trains passing in the distance as they sound their horn while they cross the countryside, and the cool summer breeze as it passes through the tent…I, was happy.

Morning comes early in these parts, especially when there are very large birds fighting over who gets what part of a branch of the tree that hangs above my tent. I didn’t mind though, as I lay there looking at the ceiling of my tent I knew that it is the beginning of one of the best days that I haven’t had in a while. I get up go down the road to the small town and get some coffee and breakfast. As I come back to my site I clean up and pack up for the day the rain starts to set in, its not just a light rain, it is a down pour. As I sit in my car trying to make my game plan I start to think what the hell am I doing here? Then I said to myself “that’s nonsense you will have fun today, rain and all”, so I turn on my car and start to drive, I end up winding through the park up the steep hills to my first destination, Look Out Point. 

With my umbrella in one hand and camera in the other I decide its just water and as long as I keep my camera dry I really have nothing to lose. As I walk down the stairs to the platform and the first glimpses of my coming view I start to smile knowing I was meant to see this. For a long time I sat and watched fog rolling across the hills, the suspended bridge to the South, the mists of rain cutting through the landscape, the clouds heavy with rain, and the fisherman on their small boats as they run for cover. For the rest of the morning I spent my time going from look out point to look out point discovering every view, and in amazement I only ran into two people the entire time I was there. My goal on this trip was to talk to who ever I ran across and really put myself out there and I came to find out when you do that people are generally the same way, especially when you are the only ones still out in a park in these types of weather conditions. Eventually the clouds broke and the sun came out.

So as I turn my car back to RT. 84 to make my way back to Chicago I find myself driving through the hills of Western Illinois, the green fields and red barns are an amazing foreground to the to the blue sky and white cloud backdrop. When I finally get to the intersection of RT. 20 I read a sign that points one direction to Chicago and the other to Galena, as I look at the sign I think to myself…I don’t want to go back there yet. So I take a left and head down the road towards Galena. 

This town is everything that this part of this country, small local business that pride themselves on their community and the culture of that community. The streets were busy with tourists and shoppers. As I pass through some of the stores I find myself going in the antique stores looking for old cameras, I found an old wind-up video camera from the early 60’s, I talk with the shop owner and talk him down to 50% of what he originally was asking for. As I go from shop to shop being my new outgoing self I talk with the locals on where to eat and what to see. I eventually found myself sitting in a sandwich and coffee shop over looking the river and enjoying my chicken sandwich. Sitting at a table alone makes you aware of what is going on around you, the conversations behind you at another table, the Oak trim of the building, how often the waitress has to go up the stairs to the second floor, who came in town to just shop for the day, how they make their coffee and a general feel of the entire town.

As I make my way back to my car I stumble across the blacksmith shop, this is one of the only original backsmith shops that is still working and doing what it was originally built for. I talked with the backsmith for awhile learning about the history of the building and the town and how one of the original owners was sent to WWII to work on the artillery branch of the services. Leaning about this town and all it had to offer was the most enjoyable days of my summer so far, I have never been anywhere where I felt so at home, so comfortable and so at easy with doing nothing all day long…it was hard to leave.

As I head back to Chicago I have my windows down and nothing on the radio. I wanted to hear the wind, smell the air and think. A lot of us go through life fearing and always thinking we need a plan but you can’t do a whole lot about what’s happened or what may or may not happen in the future, the thing you have control over is the very moment you are experiencing. We need to live in those moments because we never know what those moments are going to bring. I had several friends trying to contact me Friday night to see if I was going out for the night, when I told them I just bought a tent and am going west to find somewhere to stay for the night they all thought I was pretty crazy…I didn’t care. We as humans are not fashioned for fear, its not how we were built nor how any of us want to live, so don’t go through life fearing and worrying about what the next day might bring. Fear about the next day when it happens and deal with it then…but for now live your life and oh yeah…try and smile a bit more.