My family is fortunate enough to have places in both Vermont and Maine that we have been able to visit every year since I was very young. Both locations are very remote. Picture dirt roads, grocery stores that are at least a half hour away by car and no drinkable running water. These are the places of my childhood vacations. By nature of being very remote, most of our family activities revolved around being outside. Hanging out on the lakefront while reading a book or playing a board game was something that I was completely satisfied doing for the entirety of the vacation. The rest of my family was a bit more restless and looked to the mountains where miles of trails lead to patches of wild blueberries and breath taking views. These trips were always day long endeavors, and I absolutely hated them. It wasn’t that I was a lazy kid, I played sports year round and was very active. Looking back on it now I think it was the idea that I had no choice in the matter, that my parents required me to come on these adventures because I was too young to be left alone. My sister and I became very good at tag teaming the complaining and whining when the idea was proposed to go on these excursions.

You can imagine my parents shock the first time that I asked my parents to go on a hike. They were in a state of disbelief, saying that I didn’t like hiking and asking the question “are you sure?” So what had changed? For several years my family had not been able to visit these places because of my parents. My dad had his knee replaced and my mom found that her calf muscles were deteriorating from a rare condition, which made walking, let alone hiking, very difficult. So one change was that I had had time to grow and mature. I realized that I missed the sweat of the climb and the burn in your calves that becomes so rewarding once you reach the final peak. More importantly though, was that I had gained my independence. My parents were not able to accompany me on any hikes and I was finally old enough to drive myself to a mountain. The ability to choose to be outside, to have some control over where I wanted to go, at what time and at what pace I wanted to go was so freeing. It all came from the inner desire to be outside, the ability to then be able to follow through and that this was all done by choice. It was my decision and that has made all the difference in my experiences since then.