Ch.26 ~Happy bEarthDay Rhonda at Vickery Creek Falls - (10.12.19)

Yes, you've heard me say this before, and yes, it really is the truth, despite how dynamic I am, some things I just cannot make up. I am surrounded by the most awesome women on the planet, and each time we ch8se, I'm reminded of how blessed we are to have one another.

Vickery Creek Falls is in the city. It is actually a man made waterfall, yet beautiful nonetheless. Because of its location, we have now visited Vickery Creek for the third time, and each time is much different than the other. Of course the group of adventurers are always different, which makes for a unique experience in itself. The energy is different, the conversations are different, the awareness, and vulnerability, all different. Believe me when I tell you, myself, my Lovely Lynn, and Awesome AyJay, the most ch8sed adventurers can all attest to this truth.

Prior to this visit to Vickery Creek, the remarkable Rhonda, and I scouted the area for a route different than that of previous ch8ses in this space. I had heard of the other access point, with different trails to reach the waterfall, and of course Dora had to explore them. I researched our options, and discovered Riverside park is across from the entrance to the trail head. The park afforded free parking, with far more spaces than at the trail head. This proved to be perfect, because with as many cars that showed up for this ch8se, we would have consumed the entire parking area at the trail head. It also had several, clean bathrooms.

We start, as always with the talk before the walk, introductions, and ch8se choices. Ha, I just made that up. Those of you who ch8se with us, know exactly what this is. Our introductions unfolded three new ch8sers, the return of four ch8sers who had not been on an adventure with us in a while, and a total of seventeen of us, narrated this chapter of ch8sing waterfalls.

All things in perspective, it has now been a month since this ch8se. I try my best to publish this blog sooner, each time; however, life happens, and the energy and space has to be right, in order for me to escort you to the emotional, visual and physical space of the ch8se. It takes pause, and reflection to make it worthy, and for this I offer no apologies. I do; however, desire for you to walk away from reading this with an extraordinary sensation of embracing the ch8se. Timing is everything.

We conclude the talk before the walk and head to the trail head, which takes us across the street, into the woods. Into the woods we go, up, up, up and up some more we ascend our way to the first mile. We pause for a selfie stop, or better yet, to catch our breath, and hydrate. We make our way to the top of the waterfall. By now we have embraced the ch8se for about 2 miles, or so. Here we turn the ch8se into a planned, bEarthDay celebration for our Remarkable Rhonda. Her bestie, Deborah, and I have packed in the bubbly, and plastic cups. In our best Stevie Wonder version, we break out into the infamous, bEarthDay song, we toast, we sip. Wonderful Juanita toasted the bEarthDay girl by saying, "may all of your ups and downs, be in bed!" Ha! Priceless. I love a bEarthDay ch8se, and I hope it was the best beginning to the rest of our sistas celebratory weekend. I failed to mention that one of our new ch8sers was actually Rhonda's beautiful daughter. She joined us to celebrate he mother's bEarthday with her. The absolute best, I tell ya, the best. I think bEarthday ch8ses will happen more often. Perhaps, it will be our new, new.

When's your bEarthday?

Afterwards, we continue on our hike. Early on in this part of the ch8se I get a call that completely throws me off my game. A situation presented that forced me to give to it my immediate attention. Ya'll I was caught off guard, I did not expect this curve ball, I was truly not ready. Fortunately we were in town, and I had a signal, otherwise, it would have been a huge situation of major distress. I had mucked up and it was having a huge trickle down affect on my best, best friend, and I needed to immediately make it right. During this all, I had to take and make several phone calls. Again, completely thrown off, in a major way. Not only did this distraction present itself, somehow, in all my planning and preparing, I left my battery case at home, and was relying on battery packs to fuel my phone. Ya'll it was not working. I was internally bugging out. I never leave my battery case, never. What in all the ch8sing waterfalls foolery was happening? You see, I was relying on the All Trails app to get us back to the trail head, back to our vehicles, back to the bathrooms, and all I could get was 1% of my battery. Did I mention I was exploding on the inside? Loosing all of my ch8se cool points, feeling out of control, and disconnected from my ch8sers, I did my best to maintain. If I were not surrounded by the best superheroes I know, I would have literally, and completely lost my shit, all of it, right there in that beautiful green space. Fortunately, like always, my sistas keepers were right there and had my back the entire way.

I am still processing ya'll, battery dying, all trails not available, battery pack not charging, and on top of it all, we seem to have taken the long, long route to get back to our vehicles. Pressing through, the squad of ch8sers are laughing, talking, tired, close to hangry, yet enjoying the sisterhood. It is at some point, that I feel I'm close to loosing it, the ladies are engulfed in great conversations behind me, laughing, and a bit louder than I prefer us to be in this space, that I pause in need of prayer. I call on our Divine Deborah to lead us. We stop in the middle of the trail, conscious of sharing the space, circle up and enter into prayer. We go in! Here I am reminded that we always have exactly what we need, exactly when we need it, if we simply ask, yield and receive. I found my center again, and released the anxiety and frustration I received as a result of the call that revealed my muck up. Now I was good. Prayer is a powerful, powerful gift.

We had now been on the trail for quite sometime, and each of us looking forward to the end, pressing forward together, and focused on everything positive to push us back to where we started.

The weather is perfect, we make it to our vehicles, more importantly back to the rest rooms, and head out to lunch. We take the bEarthday brunch to the Peach & The Pork Chop. It has been a while since we've dined here, and unfortunately this time we didn't get the private space as we did before. The lunch was ok, this time, not as awesome as I remembered, nevertheless, the conversation and bonding time was fun and as powerful as always.

I'm thankful for the life lessons learned on this ch8se and the phenomenal women I shared it with. My apologies for being a bit off my normal ch8se character, and thanks for holding me down.

Until we ch8se again, Love, Peace & Waterfalls.

Your Ch8se Champion

Dynamic Deb