Getting Natural

Spent some quality time on the old internet this Labor Day weekend. My beautiful wife Becky has been reminding me about the need to plan a vacation for our 5 year anniversary. She is so good at being organized and reminding me about stuff like this. I tend to put off the planning until it is too late(procrastinate much?).

So there we were, typing things into Google like "anniversary vacation ideas" and browsing the Yahoo travel section. With so many places and activities to choose from it's hard to know where to start, and there's a ton of pressure(at least that's how I feel), when planning something like a 5yr anniversary, to make it special, memorable, romantic, and fun(and cheap of course).

To help narrow our options down, we decided we both love nature, especially nature we haven't really seen before, like big mountains, grand canyons, big oceans, and just weird/cool ecosystems. Also, we wanted to be active, since we both love a good swashbuckling adventure. That's right "swashbuckling", we be a merry crew. We thought about the Grand Canyon, but I'm pretty much a big baby when it comes to heights(I don't want to look over the edge honey, I can see it from the car just fine!).

We looked at doing some white water rafting in Oregon. I've been rafting in West Virgina when I was 16, it was fun. But it didn't seem exactly what we were looking for, the toughest rapids were only level 3(kinda wimpy for studs like us) at the few places we called, and we wanted something a little more nature experiential. That's right "experiential", we are sooo emo.

Then, as if the Almighty himself had stretched out his hand and directed our web browser, we found it! It has romance(read alcohol, haha j/k), adventure, nature, and it won't destroy our savings!

I won't keep you guessing any longer, although it has been fun prattling on about where we're NOT going. We're going to South Carolina for a couples getaway of kayaking, hiking, and historic sight seeing, October 4-7!

We couldn't be more excited, I really think this is God's plan for us. Sounds silly to me, to be seeing God's hand at work in our vacation planning, but oh well, I see it anyway. I have a peace about our choice and a solid belief that it's going to be an awesome, memorable trip that strengthens and recharges our love for each other and our love for our creator and his beautiful creation, and what could be more God inspired than that peace and expectation? Not so silly seeing God in my vacation planning after all.

There are trees on the blackwater kayaking trip that are 1,000 years old!












On the saltwater kayaking trip people see all kinds of rare birds, Dolphins, Alligators and maybe Loggerhead Seaturtles!