You learn a lot about people when you are together for unexpected events.
This weekend, I learned that I have the types of confident, resilient, courageous sorts of human beings who take on the weirdest things that the weekend has to throw at us with good humor and grace.
These girls are star dust and magic and all of those overly gushing leader things that are actually 100% true. True on their good days and their bad days and on every sort of day in between, and, this weekend, true in a way that is on display for the entire world to see. Or, at least, for the couple of dozen people who happened to be looking.
We leave for our newest adventure after they get off of work and make a pit stop at an abandoned church just as dusk begins to fall.
They make friends with a little boy while we're hiking in a cave, because, of course they do, and then stand close together to turn off their flashlights, just to see what the world really looks like when it's dark.
They wash dishes and fill water jugs and swim in a reservoir when the temperature outside hits approximately 5,000 degrees, and rearrange the van for the dozenth time as we get ready to bounce down another dusty road.
They wake up to cows and pancakes and tell stories around a campfire after the sun finally sets.
It's simple and it's easy, and we have approximately enough food to feed an army, but we all have real life to get back to, so we break camp before it gets too hot and proceed to do what all sensible humans do on the first triple digit day of the season.
We hike up a cliff.
Dip our heads and our shirts in the river, check the map a dozen times, and huff and puff our way up switchbacks that, for a few long moments, seem like they are never going to end.
But, we are playing off of that potent mixture of that Bethel kid loyalty that only calls a win when it is a win for everyone and the Tri-Cities stubborn that refuses to be the first one to tap out, and, so, they push each other to the top. Wobbly legged. Breathless. Sweating. And, victorious.
Because, this is what a small group is for. It is for talking about everything and nothing and continually tying together the threads of memory. For standing together when the lights go out and for pushing each other higher, farther, one step closer to our goal.
For being there when we are slipping our way back into the valley, and for making peanut butter sandwiches on the side of the road when we suddenly discover that nothing is going as expected.
When lug nuts break and the tire falls off and not everywhere in Oregon has cell reception, and not every roadside assistance agent is able to find your account.
When there are problems that even this stubborn, self sufficient group of humans can't tackle on our own. There is Grace to cover. Grace in the form of strangers who offer the use of their shop, their landline, their couch. Grace in family members who offer half a dozen different options for getting the two hours back to town. And, grace in sunburnt, tired girls who keep moving forwards, even when, for a few long moments, it seems like the switchbacks will never end.
Because, these kinds of girls, the kind who can handle too hot, too cold, too late, too early; who can laugh when they realize that parts of our car are strewn across this rural road; who can climb down into and up onto things that scare them and come out stronger. These kinds of girls can change the world.
