Over this past Labor Day weekend my 12 year old son, my oldest daughter, son-in-law and their 1 ½ year old son traveled up the Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada.
The scenery was amazing with wide open valleys bordered by alpine like mountains.
We set up our camp in a primitive wooded area along side a year round stream that provided a continuous soothing, rambling sound. It was interesting to watch how my youngest son ejoyed building a make-shift dam of tree branches and stones across the stream, cutting firewood and or course making the fire, and playing with his nephew.
As for my nephew he found tremendous joy running in the open. He squealed with delight going just 0.1 mph – more fun than I had going 90 mph (yes, I did get pulled over).
As for me I found the quiet solitude, the camp fire, time with family and the beauty of nature an invaluable change of pace.
This experience cost little of the traditional currency that we customarily use to assign value to things. Yet their value is certainly great. We tend to pass by such things as we race to accumulate our fancy possessions. Somewhere along the line, we stopped valuing, stopped appreciating, and stopped looking at the ordinary facets of our lives. Obtaining value in our lives needn’t require expenditures of money, but requires only the ability to see it.