Today the hubby and I took all six kiddos, ages 5 to 13, on a hike. It was a tough one, there were switchbacks. It’s 1.6 miles and 780 feet up. The prize at the top is cave carved by the wind with shade, squirrels, and seats carved into the stone. The whining started about 200 yards from the top of the trail, and most of them were in my own head. I mentally whimpered about my heart condition, my sore feet, my knees, and the “it’s not too difficult a trail” description given by my husband.

But when we got there the complaints ceased.

I don’t mean to suggest that my knees stopped screaming or that we had a perfectly zen-like time, but for about twenty minutes there was a view of the world that made problems small and possibilities large.

I was so in the moment, looking at cool rocks my daughter brought me and watching the youngest scamper over and under the rock formations that we didn’t get a picture. The trip down was a comedy of errors involving ill equipped shoes, sore muscles, and skidding rocks, but we made it to the bottom.

Tired but victorious.

I could have spent the day mired in To-Dos. I could have worried about the coming week.

But I knew that my spirit needed to be outdoors. I knew my kids needed to get away from screens, which will be plentiful over the coming break from school. I knew these things. And it would have been super easy to ignore them and just stay home. But we went, we conquered, and feel warm and full from it.

Sometimes the best medicine for a long week or a weary soul is a simple family Saturday and a view from the top of the world.