The Upside of a Sack Lunch

For one, you can eat your sack lunch anywhere, even along a refreshing snow-melt stream in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming.
Of course, you have to hike up there first. “Up there” is about 8,000 feet, which is no small feat when you are living day to day at 500 feet above sea level.
I’m not saying I wasn’t up for the challenge, even in my slightly older, slightly pudgy state. It helps to have a husband who carries the actual lunches, water and miscellaneous gewgaws on his back.
As a person who lives for shade, the open meadows were beautiful, but sweltering. When I checked the temperatures before I left, the prediction was 90 degrees every day wherever we were headed.
So I simply braced myself and wore a cooling scarf — a neat doodad with swelling beads that you can dip in a freezing cold stream — which helped keep my body temperature in check.
When we reached an enticingly shady spot, we sat on a rock and ate our sack lunches. I’m quite sure the glorious view enhanced the tuna salad and made it taste that much better.
My husband cajoled me onto a rickety bridge with promises of a better view. Naturally I succumbed, and he was correct.
Hiking back to the trailhead I felt God winking at us through snow-capped peaks,
dramatic clouds,
charming flora
and enchanting fauna.
As with all remote hiking and lunching, we tried not to leave our mark. But a mark was definitely left on us.

Photos © Sondra Sula.

Take a walk with me by reading my daily devotional book, Meditations on Mendocino by Sondra Sula. Available on Amazon in paperback or Kindle versions.

If you’d prefer a daily river walk, Reflections on the Fox River and Beyond by Sondra Sula, might just be the book for you.

Before Entering

Before entering certain environments there are certain requirements: remove your shoes, check your bags, turn off your cell phone. The list goes on. At the Mendocino Coast Botanical Gardens a sign could read: Before you enter, look around. Because outside the door are giant calla lilies silhouetted against a curtain of bamboo.

Pink magnolias balance on bare white-gray branches that overhang cocoa-colored mulch. Floppy ivory blooms sway amid shaggy beards of lichen and moss.

The towering red spike of a Gunnera plant reminds me that creation can be wild and wooly. Baffling, too. The massive leaves would make great parasols if they weren’t covered in spines.

Lily pads in shades of green, gold, bronze and burgundy float upon the blue pond’s surface. The exotic, bucolic view is available, free, to anyone who wants to explore the edge of the parking lot.

The next time you are about to enter a building, take a mental note of something before you go in. The texture of the door, a stray pebble on the walkway, a plant along the outer wall, the hues reflected by the windows… You may discover a fun little world that was always there, unnoticed.

All photos © Sondra Sula.