The Truth About Needs

Little article for the upcoming edition of The Voice...enjoy

When I was invited to contribute to this issue of The Voice and discuss Needs, I went home and I googled, 'What do I need?' (mostly for some material rather than an actual curiosity).

I was instantly given 2,350,000,000 results (!). The majority of these responses were questions like "What do I need to be happy?", there was information about crossing the US/Canada border and tons of quizzes, my favourite one being called "Do You Need Therapy?"

All in all this google search was useless and apart from discovering I may need therapy, it was a total waste of time.

Anyways...Today the word 'need' has become terribly misused.

We use 'need' to justify.

It comforts us because we can insert it in a sentence just before the thing we are going to buy to make sure it's okay. "I need a new _____", "I'm going out because I need ________".

How close are these statements to reality? Or how true are these statements?

What do we really need? I suppose the answer is relative to who you ask and I guess it's equally relative to when you ask them. But if we get down to the basic human question of "What do we need as humans?", then I guess the answer to what do you need is relative to what you want to be...

For basic humans, we want to be alive.

Living.

Not dead.

To accomplish this continued state of living, we would need oxygen, clean water, and food. That's it really.

But it's really not it. Ask anybody who has these three basic things what they need and you won't hear food, water, oxygen.

Maybe it's a Canadian or North American thing where we are constantly creating new needs for ourselves.

I do it all the time. I was just looking at new hiking packs and chose to save the $100 after asking, "do I need this?" Yes it's more comfortable, yes it is newer, yes it is bigger, but do I need it? Naw.

I want to put a bigger speaker system in my car so my bass can be bumpier. It's about $200 which is affordable. But do I need it? Nope.

Honestly, after our basic needs our met, what more do we actually need?

Not too much.

I'll use myself as an example. I'm a 21 year old who's married. I live in the North East end of the city in a basement apartment.

I need food and water and oxygen. My lungs are in good working order, so oxygen is taken care of. Water comes out of the taps that are included in my rent each month, so that's taken care of. My wife and I require jobs that generate income in order to purchase healthy food. We each have jobs at opposite ends of the city. I now have two jobs at opposite ends of the city.

We have a car. I think we could probably say we need this to get to our jobs to get the money to get the food to survive. And we wear clothes so we can keep our jobs considering they require us to have a clean criminal record.

So we have

• home/shelter
• income
• car
• food
• water
• clothes
• +

Now the plus category is stuff. I say stuff because really, that's all it is. Furniture, electronics, books, kitchenware. It's all stuff. It's stuff that we continue to acquire and upgrade and dispose of and repeat! Recently I have begun to think more about our stuff and have been seriously considering living in an RV or something similar. If you ask my wife, that will never happen.

In thinking of my "needs", I am always brought back to a little photograph on my fridge. It's a special photograph. It is a photograph of a little boy named David Ederson Paraguay Quispe. He's a little Peruvian kid we picked out of a bunch. He is our Compassion Child and the money that invisibly comes out of our bank each month provides him with clean water, food, education, medicine and other necessities for a kid.

I think of people like David and I think of families like his and I think about the things I claim to need, and I get a little bit upset. Maybe it's more uneasy than upset. But I start to feel crappy. I mean here I am, typing on a $2000 computer what could've been written on a piece of 3 ring lined.

My life is easy and convenient and abundant. When I put myself beside David, I am too rich. I have too much stuff. How do I know?

I know because my 'need' for a new computer

and my 'need' for nice shoes

and my 'need' for a new DVD

and my 'need' for another book

and my 'need' for a big car

and my fake, callous, selfish "NEEDS" are just silly, self centred wants in disguise.

My wants have mingled with my needs and become like them. And now my "needs" are more important than David's and my "needs" have allowed me to let others go without. And not even others across the world but even others in my own city.

Now a few hours ago I posted on facebook, "Quick! Don't Think! just answer this question, "what do you need?". I had 6 responses from 4 people and the one that stood out was one from an old friend from college, his response was "first thing that popped into my head when I read your question was "Jesus!"".

And I agree.

We all need Jesus.

I need Jesus to remind me that others don't have what I take for granted and others NEED to come before my luxuries.

After all, there is one who will say "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

So ask yourself,

"What do I need?"

"What do I want?"

"At what cost?"

Bruce Round 3 - Back Packing and Back Tracking

The third hike log is finally here! We have been killing the trail (not literally of course)!

For those of you who are new here, Kattina and I are attempting to complete the Bruce Trail End to End. Now we're not doing all of this at once, but going out to the trail and coming home each time.

August 26th is when we started our third leg.

Now we had a lot more stuff this time because we had planned to sleep in the bush. One of these stuffs was a Magellan GPS that Brother Drew gave us after he replaced it. We hung it to our pack and set out. For the first 4 km, everything went smoothly. Shortly after this we attempted to check our stats and found that we had travelled no less than 18km...in less than 2 hours. That's right, we pwn! So needless to say we abandoned that method of logging stuff and we just had to jot stuff down based on the time (we're working on this folks).

So anyways, here we go! Tripblog #3

We arrived at Brock University at about 6:45pm and started hiking at 7:30. We had a few hiccups with gear which delayed our departure slightly, but hey, we still got out of there with some light.

8:10pm - We came accross 3 White Tailed Deer eating their supper not far from Brock University. They spotted us as we tried to snap a few shots of them and took off a few minutes later. The low light wasn't great with the zoom lens and we didn't yield great results.

Shortly after this, we were walking toward Lake Moodie and noticed a fantastic sign on the fence that read 'Caution, Crossing this fence may result in drowning'. Other signs so far have included, 'Shooting Range Do Not Enter', and 'Beware of Flying Golf Balls'.

8:25 - We arrived at Lake Moodie in the knick of time to catch an awesome sunset and a freaky bird! We also realized at this point that we were all out of blazes and had missed a switchback a hundred metres ago...Back track number 1. we found our way and kept up the pace.

8:30 - Little run in with a bat. Nothing to worry about. Forward.

8:40 - Time for the headlamps!

9:10 - We emerged once again at Lake Moodie but this time with a gravel path to follow. We had a clear view of the stars and and a great time just chatting together. We didn't even need our lamps; the stars and moon did all the work. I'd have to say this was probably one of the best parts of the trip. It took about 45 minutes to get back into the forested part of the trail after rounding the lake.

10:20 - We thought it was time to stop for a bite and we happened to find this AMAZING giant oak tree growing just off the path but hanging over an extremely steep hill with the sound of a rushing waterfall in front of us. Unfortunately because of the dark, we were uinable to actually get a look at the waterfall. But the food was amazing! Samosas courtesy of India Spice House and some delightfully crispy apples.

We chilled here for a bit while Kattina read out a beautiful letter from a beautiful friend that was given to us on our first anniversary. Shout out to Gabzilla/Gabbitronix/Gab-EE/Gabasaurus Rex/Gab 0210/Grabby Gabby/G-Dick.

From here we hiked around the waterfall and came out of the forest at the Morningstar Mill where we checked the map and travelled down the most frustrating part of any trail ever! We walked about a km up the road before realizing that we hadn't really seen any blazes for a little bit...we hadn't even seen a path off the road. So we turned around and backtracked (again!) to the mill where we revisited the map and went back up the road on the opposite side. We finally found the blaze...behind a road sign...awesome...

So around 11:30 we finally found our way back onto the trail! We went for another 20 minutes before finding the perfect place to rest for a bit. It was divine provision if you ask me. We had, to our left, a beautiful pine needle bed behind a load of tall grass nearly invisible from the trail.So we went in pitched the Wanderer 2, got into our warm clothes and snuggled up.

Now you should know that we opted out of bringing sleeping bags or thermarests for the sake of space and weight and we thought track suits and a tent would do the trick. Boy were we wrong! We woke up about 3 times each hour to readjust or to put more socks on or just to pray for warmth!

We do know that camping on the trail is considered trespassing and we do know you have to get busted while trespassing to be charged with trespassing and we did know we were taking a risk. But it was awesome.

We had the alarm set for 4am and we were up by 4:30. We started our day with Rice Crispy Squares and some phenominal peanut butter and jelly (RASPBERRY!) wraps. We packed up the tent, checked our gear and we were back on the trail by 6am.

The cool air was amazing. We walked along dew soaked fields and meadows and listened to the birds chirp with the sunrise. There was a cool mist over the earth and which seemed to make the morning that much more beautiful.

6:20 - We arrived at the entrance to Short Hills Provincial Park and were able to watch a doe and her fawn make their way up one of the short hills near the park entrance. We entered the park and found out quickly that it is appropriately named! The hills were pretty short for the most part but we did have some doozies. The park was filled with open meadows, waterfalls, and beautifully matured trees. It was kinda crappy because all of the waterfalls have dried up from the drought. Very cool to walk in though!

7:40 – We arrived at what looked like the summit of Short Hills. We walked up to a picnic table and a parking lot for horses. We sat down at the table which we dubbed 2nd Breakfast Table. Here we enjoyed a fine pint of breakfast beer and a couple samosas and fruit and we relaxed until 8.

8:00 – Back on the trail! We headed down an awesome hill and then back up a less awesome hill. We came into a path along the side of a wide open field and met an awesome Brown Snake. He was about a foot and half long and a little bit aggressive. I think we came up on him pretty quick and scared the little guy. We let him be and made a little note. Soon after this we found a road and exited the designated park area to cross a couple stiles behind some horse farms.

We saw a lot of cool creatures on this hike. It all kind of kicked off with the deer but the brown snake led to cicada, to two Butler Snakes, to a hawk, to many neat little interesting birds, to about 100 little toads, to big dirty vultures!

9:55 – I noticed a steep ridge to the right of the trail and saw some movement. About 30 feet away from us, I noticed a large, black turkey vulture! I kept going while switching to my zoom lens. By the time I turned around he was gone. I noticed a little cave in the rocks with some vulture poo and down feathers and I had a glimmer of hope that I might find a vulture feather. As I maneuvered my way toward the cave I started to get really excited I approached the opening and noticed that there were two vultures right inside!!! I scurried back up the hill to Kattina and got the camera. I came back and they were still there…I put J-May’s Vultures on the music box and snapped a few shots of the birds! I learned that vultures hiss when they mean business and I took that as my cue to move along…So I did…

From here on out, we knew our picker-upper at the end of the trail would be here soon and we had some distance to cover still so we attempted to boot it. We had to hustle through some really interesting parts of the trail that consisted of giant hunks of rock that we got to hop and skip across.

12:44 – We found the road! We were exhausted and sweaty and excited and we found the road! We made our way to the lot where we met our picker-upper, Laurene Wittich. We snapped one final photo and we were on to our next adventure. Yes, a trip to Mec(ca). We ate a pleasant lunch at Timmy’s and drove to Burlington!

When we arrived we had a few things in mind, packs were at the top of the list! After a stroll through the GPS, Water purifier, Bivy Sac, and Hiking tent sections, we met with Dina. Dina is a brilliant MEC employee and an even more brilliant person! She rocks, She was able to give us a ton of information on packs and backs! We learned how to properly pack a pack and strap a pack. We got the lowdown on sleeping bags, and therm-a-rests and she even gave us some rock solid financial advice! Thanks Dina! We’ll see you again bro!

NOW we were headed home. For real.

What did we learn this time? Well, nothing new. But I was reminded of a very important thing when it comes to marriage. It’s better together (Thanks Jack Johnson). We found that we had packed poorly and planned poorly when it came to the distance and the frigid night’s sleep. But while we were hiking around Lake Moodie, I looked at Kattina and told her I was glad she was with me. Two are better than one, especially when going through tough stuff. I’m sure we will encounter more challenging hikes, heavier packs, colder nights and wetter days, but as long as we are together, we can encourage one another and lead each other through the muck and the dark and the blisters and the chills. It’s also great because if one of us falls off a cliff or something, the other can dial 9-1-1. I think that’s in Ecclesiastes somewhere…The Message maybe…

The next hike is going to polish off the Niagara section of trail and it will be glorious.

If anyone is up for joining us, catch me on FaceBook or in real life.

Love Zach + Kattina + Bruce

xoxoxo

P.S. Photos will follow soon!

Pre Hike Check-In!

So here we go again! So far, this upcoming leg, leg 3, has needed the most preparation but it is also the most anticipated thus far.

We started packing on Wednesday so we wouldn’t forget anything seeing as this is a pretty different hike than the first two we’ve done. The plan is to leave from Guelph tonight at 5. Arrive at Brock U an hour and a half later, hit the trail at the 26.3km mark and boot it to Short Hills Provincial Park and camp out guerilla style. That’s right! Hike. Sleep. Hike.
Kattina and I have never tried this before and I am very excited and a little bit afraid…I’m like 17% nervous, 4% scared, 69% excited, 2% hungry, and 8% wishing I had more experience!

Top 10 Fears for this journey include

1- Running out of water
2- Squatting down to poop and being bit by a snake
3- Getting lost
4- Meeting a cougar
5- Spotting a T-Rex
6- Being Arrested
7- Hobo with a glass eye
8- Brussels Sprouts
9- Exhaustion
10- Diarrhea

Thursday night (last night), got the groceries for tonight and Saturday. Drew and I had a pretty insane time in line at Metro on Stone Rd. The cashier attempted to charge me for two heads of lettuce that I had not purchased (simple mistake I think), but the crazy part was that it took no less than 7 minutes to get them off of the bill…it was crazy. She chalked it up to “possessed” cash registers. I started thinking of how weird it would be if Jesus cast out that legion of demons into a herd of cash registers…just a thought…
Today on my lunch break I planned to just run home and grab the gear and prep the food for tomorrow which went fine. Then, I lost my mind! I couldn’t find my knee brace anywhere! Seriously does anyone else want to go Hulk when you can’t find something you KNOW is around? I could’ve exploded, but you know what? I am not a fan of letting anger ruin an upcoming adventure! So I took some deep breaths and got in the car and grabbed a coffee at the neighborhood Tim’s.

Well, we’re off now. We’ll be sure to submit our trip log as soon as we get back!

Love Zach + Kattina + Bruce

The Deets

So recently I was on a hike (on The Bruce) with a new friend. We got to talking about the pop-Christian publications out there and got onto the topic of Rob Bell which obviously led to the topic of hell (You know, it would probably be weird knowing that a lot of people think about you and hell in the same train of thought. Gnome sayin?). We started discussing the recent release of Love Wins and the backlash and the threats and the condemnation that Rob has received (mostly from Christians), and we also talked about the new Francis Chan book Erasing Hell. Now we wrestled with the concept of hell and the minimal theological understanding we both have about hell, and I personally felt like I was beginning to lose a debate which had surfaced. Now the debate was not whether or not hell exists but it was more or less about whether or not our “understanding” of hell affects our understanding of Christ.

I was of the persuasion that it did, a lot! Whereas my friend was not so much in that camp. This got me thinking, do the details really matter? I mean, in all honesty, I have no clue what hell is like, but I still love Jesus. I still desire to know him more fully. I suppose if you asked me what hell is like I might say it’s hot, and painful, and dark, and devoid of any hint of the Father…I guess. But even in that, my friend put forth that the Bible describes hell as full of fire and darkness…hmm. Are fire and darkness metaphors, perhaps even similes? Is the Bible %100 literal all the time? Honestly, I don’t know. Does it shake my faith? Honestly, no.

Does God love me?

Does he even like me?

Yes!

Did Jesus die for my sins and cancel my debt of death?

Yes!

Does God pursue me and seek communion with me?

Yes!

Is the of Christ the best way?

Yes!

Is there a purpose for my life?

Yes!

Is hell a place of eternal suffering for all who are not “saved”, “born again”, or “liberal”?

I have no friggin clue! But after the first five questions are answered, do the details of hell really matter? Honestly? Because I can say that I am definitely not sure what I believe hell to be like and yet I still stand firm in Christ.

I believe we are called to love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves. These are the most important pieces to Christianity. Love God and love people.

Back to Bell for a minute. I know the dude gets flak from people because he can come across as indecisive for (apparently) the sake of not offending people, but I’m starting to see it more as a bit of honesty. I don’t think he knows what happens when we die…and I think he knows that. Does that make him or anyone else in the same boat a heretic or an antichrist? I guess that depends who you ask.

But honestly can anyone give me a straight answer as to what happens when we die?
What happens at the moment of death? Is it like a cut scene where we are instantly in the arms of Christ? Is there a check in time or a line up?
Are we judged at the exact moment of death?
Are we instantly taking part in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb or do we chill until a later time that God has already prepared for us? Because if that’s the case, we’ve applied a framework of time to something most would claim is outside of time...
If hell is a place of literal suffering, is heaven a place of literal peace? If so, is that peace only peace because of the references we’ve gained from our “past life”?
What happens to babies when they die?
What happens when a toddler dies?
What’s the age where people are held accountable for their actions by a righteous God?
If hell is a literal place of pain and suffering, how would that be translated through a lens of eternity?
What happens to people who have never heard the name of Jesus by the time they die?

We can’t even comprehend eternity and I think it’s easy to get caught up on eternal matters! Why? Is our doctrine our salvation?

Now, FYI, I have not read either of these books and I think the only reason I might is to say I have and thus remain in the loop of pop Christianity. I have been reading the Bible quite a bit though and I am learning that God is a giant mystery! There are things he does and things he says that blow my mind. Things that make no sense to me! The things I know I have already said and they are that God loves me and his plan for me is to reflect that love into the world and to live a free life in him. Those things are clear.

I hope I have been clear in saying that I am not all that clear on a lot. But the bottom line is that we need to focus on that which has been revealed to us. It is not for man to determine the things of eternity and it is not for us to build our theology around such things. Our theology is Christ. Our hope is in Christ. Worry about living how you know you are supposed to.

Love God

Love people

Love Well

Xoxo

Zach

The Bruce - Not Even a Walk in the Park

Well, looks like the Charbonneaus are well on the way to hiking the Bruce!

Yesterday we started where we left off at the 7km mark by the train tracks in Fireman's Park and we ended at the 26.3km mark on Merritville Highway just behind Brock U.

That's 19.3km done in a day! Hoorah!

Hi-Fives all around!

So, in keeping with the rules of a Bruce Trail End-to-End, here is our trip log.

Now, as I mentioned last time, we had learned some lessons on our first 7km journey and we decided to put those lessons learned into practice. We hope you learned those lessons with us and we hope you enjoy this part of the Bruce with us.

Here we go!

Saturday, August 13th we woke up at 7 (Kattina a little later, but shhh) and started our day with a colourful breakfast of fresh strawberries, blueberries, and some apple cinnamon oatmeal with soy milk (I know! I know! Soy milk gives you

he-boobies...whatever man...it's delicious!).

We took a quick inventory of our pre-packed packs, got our water out of the fridge, and hopped in the Camrymobile!

"What did we bring?" you ask! Good question! Let me tell you.

Lunch and Snacks (Spinach Salad, Apples, Corn Nuts, Soy Nuts, Celery and Peanut Butter, Kashi crunchy bars (Just a word on the Kashi bars; those things are very 'meh' I thought they were kind of stale and tasted kind of like tree bark with honey. Step it up Kashi. SON!)

Rain Coats

Bathing Suit

Toilet Paper - Lesson #1

Pocket Knife (a la Curt Hesselink)

Coghlan's flint

Trail Map

Rite in the Rain notepad

Camera (Canon Rebel XS)

Head Lamps (Petzl 15 lumin, Black Diamond 70 lumins)

Wallets

Phones

Bugspray and Sunscreen (Shout out to Ben's for making some amazing bug spray) - Lesson #2

Once we made sure we had everything we needed we were off. Or so we thought. We left the homestead at about 8:10 and made our first stop at the 7/11. We needed Gatorade.

Now I knew going to the 7 was taking a risk of falling under the Curse of 7. What's that?! Well the Curse of 7 is a very real thing on Speedvale Ave in Guelph. What happens is you go in for a very simple purchase; a Slurpee, a Charleston Chew, a bottle of Gatorade and inevitably there is a senior at the only available cash register who is checking no less than 11 lottery tickets. Now luck would have it where this senior wins with about 4 of these tickets. With the winnings, the senior buys more tickets. The senior will then check these tickets and the cycle goes on and on and on...for like 15 minutes...the Curse of 7.

Now this day, I narrowly avoided falling under the curse as I was in front of the man with the fistful of tickets.

Next stop, Shopper's. Yep, I needed a new knee brace. After a quick stop there, we were headed to the highway. But wait, where's our note pad? Awesome! We left it on the desk at home. So for the sake of the Trip (B)log we had to go back.

We quickly drove home and headed for the highway, again. This time, we checked traffic and we knew we were in the clear. We left Guelph around 8:50am.

Mumford and Sons...pumping (Get the album,Sigh No More)

We arrived in St. Catharines at Tim Horton's to meet our hiking buddy for

the day. Ladies and gentlemen, Jon Warner.

Jon is a new friend of ours who recently started working at our church in Guelph. He's a good dude and he likes Egg McMuffins.So we picked up Jon and parked his car at the end point of our hike.

From here we were headed to Firemen's park. On the way, Jon led us through a tunnel going

under the canal. It was AWESOME!

Once we arrived at Fireman's Park and hit the port-a-potty we were on the trail! It's 10:56am. The sun is shining. The first thing I noticed as we entered the bush was the cicadas weren't as loud as last weekend.

0.3km - We find an old rusted out car. Now the rules state we're supposed to leave the trail cleaner than we found it by taking out all garbage but I mean seriously, a car?! How the frack did it even get in there?

As we continued we observed a few differences in the terrain and found it to be a bit boring. We started along a lot of road sections and saw lots of dirt bike tracks. We walked by some sewage settling lagoons with waterworks employees doing their thing. Here the conversation was theology based. We discussed the newest pop Christian literature and shared our opinions and thoughts on the subject in question. While we walked calmly along the lagoons, there were frogs galore hopping on the path in front of us. One of the coolest things was all the grass hoppers on the trail in front of us. They were hopping everywhere. It was kind of like Moses parting the sea except we were parting a sea of insects...still cool though...

4km - We walked over the QEW pedestrian bridge which was amazing! I noticed at this point that our buddy Jon was leaking his love juice all over. Now before you call the police for that statement, I should clarify that the brother sweats a heart shaped pattern onto his shirt when he exerts himself. We dubbed it Love Juice.

4.1km - We saw our first ever live cicada! I heard the buzzing really clearly beside the trail and with eyes peeled was able to spot the little guy buzzing away on a young tree. I was able to snap a few of him before he crawled away. Shortly after we found this guy we came to what the Reference calls the Screaming Tunnel. Naturally, we felt the need to scream! J-Dub and I belted it! It was pretty awesome. I mean, how many people can say they screamed in the screaming tunnel? Actually, there's probably tons of people who could say that...whatever.

The tunnel came out at Warner Rd and headed left along a vineyard and some pear trees. I always find the Niagara Region really neat for all the things that grow in the area! It's an awesome place for growth. Just over a kilometre of road and we were back in the bush. Almost. "*GASP* a heron!" says Kattina as she slowly scurries to the side of a pond! "Where?", say I, now following closely, camera in hand. As we get closer we see it! But it's a statue of a duck...close baby. So close.

While we were walking this chunk of the Trail, Jon got to sharing his engagement story. The story is one of awe and wonder and learning through failure and being violated at the border. The end of the story taught me a valuable lesson in that good ideas and big plans take just the right amount of time to go smoothly. If you go rushing into something unprepared, you'll likely fall short or hurt others along the way. The potential consequences of the shenanigans Jon was involved in at the time of his engagement were certainly sobering, but the

big lesson for me was one about shortcuts. Shortcuts are easy and convenient but in the end, you could be missing a big and important part of the journey. Pretty timely lesson I'd say.

6.5km - We stopped for a snack on a log now dubbed The Snack Log, where we had celery and peanut butter and listened to the rest of Jon's story. A few nasty switchbacks later, we were at this excellent old brick building owned by the district's school board. It was white and had like 5 chimneys coming out of it! We entered the forest again and walked along some intense rock formations with some pieces that had fallen off the Escarpment. We also found another cicada shell an a tree in here!

As we came out of the woods to cross yet another road, we noticed a sign by one of

the stiles. One part of the sign said 'beware of flying golf balls'. Nice. We came out to a golf course where the new game was to guess Jon's middle name. We knew the initial was D and we were on the scent.

• Drew
• Dean
• Denny
• Donald
• Dennis
• Dwight
• Dirt Bag
• Dylan
• Derek
• David
• Dexter
• Dickie
• Deli
• Delroy
• Dartanion
• Devon
• Dejonda

None of these were right of course, but Kattina finally nailed it when she guessed Doug! Really it's Douglas though. FYI.

So we continued on through the golf course until we found this really cool river running beside the trail about 30 feet down. It was in a man made channel. It took us some time but finally we figured out that we were looking at the Third Welland Canal.

As we got to different parts of it we found something

unique each time. I think we came out about four times and the first time, we found an apple tree that we could actually eat from! It was delicious. Or bitter, depending on how you see it. We also noticed there was an old truss in the water down below. Now Jon swears he saw a giant fish swimming about but I have my doubts... The second time we came out, we saw a second rusted out car! It had come down the embankment somehow and was just never removed I guess. The fourth and last time we came out we saw two HUGE pipes going under the road. The way they were situated kind of reminded me of a gigantic double barrelled shotgun. It was pretty neat.

As we walked away from the old canal, the most recent one was in site! We walked past a GM plant with turkey vulture sitting in the front lawn...hmmm...

12.1km - We got a great view of the canal and the giant vessels that make use of it from the Glendale Bridge where we stood for a little bit before continuing along the Fourth Welland Canal. The cool thing about this bridge is that it gets lifted up about 40 feet if there's a boat that needs to go through! It was neat to stand under and look at all of the interesting machinery involved in that.

As I was saying, we continued along the Canal and realized that we were walking up a lactic acid explosion of a hill! We got to the top and noticed we had run out of blazes...hmm, we went back down the hill and realized that there is a very sharp right turn to keep you on the main path. Kattina was impressed. Moving on.

14km - We walked through this next section of trail which was mostly uphill and once we got to the top, we stopped for a lunch and a little game of catch where the trail meets Merrit St.

We leave from here feeling re-energized and ready to finish strong. We soon cross a little bridge and head up yet another hill. At the top of this hill we find an Eagle Bridge where we discovered Zach Charbonneau Falls. Jon Warner thought it appropriate to name the newly discovered man-made waterfall after the one who discovered it. You can find the good news in his Twitter feed (#Jonwarner82).

We came out of this forest into a little suburbia and followed the road side trail which met with another road and led us past gas stations and fast food joints and a mall...(Are we still on a trail?)...and a flag salesmen.

16.6km - We stop at a Tim Horton's on Tremont Dr. and a wonderful supervisor named Cindy was extremely kind and even put ice in our bottles! Give that babe a raise, Tim!

From here we had a ton of hill to climb! It was the WORST! We basically walked through a pretty well-to-do neighbourhood talking about horrible it would be trying to bike up that kind of hill. We made it to the top snapped a few shots of fire hydrants and kept moving. Shortly after this I realize that the GPS app I bought for $1 is crap. It just stopped at about 11km and I later realized that the darn thing was way off in measurements! All of our stats for the day were garbage. Luckily Drew was able to give us an old GPS of his to use for future treks.

We got through a short bit of forest on Glenridge and emerged on the Merrittville Highway! This was our end point for the day. 19km conquered! Now all that was left was to get back to the car.

We made it back past Brock campus, McDonald's (blessings and peace be upon it), and a Tim's and into the hotel parking lot where we parked.

All in all, it was a day for success. I know Kattina was a hurtin' unit near the end; what with all the hills and all. My legs were finished. Jon was doing just fine...or was he? We persevered to the finish line for the day.

If you were to ask me how the day went I would probably tell you the best part was the challenge of walking 20km. The scenery and the trail were pretty lame and even upsetting at some parts. I mean shortly into the hike, we noticed about 10 oil drums just sitting in the bush. They were rusted through and there was a black sludge on the ground around them. It's upsetting enough to realize the Bruce Trail passes directly in front of multiple burger joints and gas stations. But to walk through a forest with 10 oil barrels and two cars just sitting there to rust and pollute. It's downright shameful. I found it irritating to go "hiking" and walk on cement 30% of the time as well.

Now it's interesting because I would've loved to skip this part of the trail, but going back to Jon's engagement story, which is a long one. He tells a good story about how corners were cut and details missed. These details and cut corners could've cost him a lot more than they did. In reality mistakes made can often teach us hard lessons. We grow from mistakes. In reflecting on this story, which I hope you hear one day, I understand that the road is narrow and long. The long narrow road has no shortcuts. The long road is long for a reason. The long narrow road is filled with gruelling switchbacks. From here we see where we once were from a different perspective, rather than running up the steep hill just to look back and see all the parts of the trail that we've missed out on. After this journey up the Bruce Trail, I don't want to look back and see that I've missed the good stuff. I want to know I did my best in the thick of it.

Let's continue on this journey together. It will be difficult. It will be a challenge. But we will grow in and learn about ourselves.

Thanks Bruce for showing us some of the bad stuff; it makes the good look that much better. Until next time Chief.

Zach + Kattina + Jon

xoxo

The Bruce - Off We Go

It was a difficult decision but it had to be made; "rain or shine, we're going to St.Catharines tomorrow". This was the call Friday night for our impending adventure on our first section of the Bruce Trail.

See, Kattina and I have put together a couple's bucket list (which can be found in an earlier post for those interested) and we've decided to start big (really big).

The Bruce Trail spans 885km across Southern and Central Ontario. It follows the Niagara Escarpment starting in St.Catharines and ending in Tobermory. Yeah. It's big. And yeah, we're going to hike it...please pray.

The trail is named after James Bruce, the 8th Earl of Elgin. This dude had some serious hair and oversaw the second Opium War in China. He has a ton of stuff named after him including The Bruce Trail, Port Elgin, The Lord Elgin Hotel (Ottawa), Kincardine, and Bruce and Elgin County. Needless to say, this dude was a baller and a viceroy!

In preparation for this hefty task we had to pick up a Bruce Trail Reference ($34) at our local giant bookstore. I was advised to do so by the trusty Bruce Trail website where I also found a fantastic little motivator; the Bruce Trail End to End Badge.

Yes, this glorious piece of badge is given to those who successfully hike the Bruce in his entirety. It's the satisfaction of knowing you'll have a little something something to show for all the blood, sweat and tears put into this adventure. Now there are a few prerequisites to earning this badge...

As per brucetrail.org the rules are as follows,

To be recognized as an official End-to-Ender with the Bruce Trail

Conservancy, you will need to do the following:

Send us your trail logs*

Be a member at the time you complete your end-to-end

Provide us with the date you completed your end-to-end.

Send us $15 to cover the costs of processing your end-to-end and to pay for your end-to-end badge.

*The trail logs can be as simple as list of where you started and where you ended on a particular day. It might be worth having a separate page for each club section.

So now the $15 is no problem, the date of completion has yet to be decided, we're in the process of becoming members (which, by the way, is half price until October thanks to KEEN (Hey KEEN! Send us some boots! :P...But seriously, send us some boots)),now we can start on our trail logs, which is what you are experiencing right now! Awesome! Woohoo! It's like you're right there with us!

So here we go.

We got up around 9 and enjoyed some oatmeal with apples and cinnamon topped with soy milk and a half grapefruit (Daniel Fast breakfast special). We packed our backpacks with the essentials.

1. Lunch and Snacks (Spinach Salad, Bananas, Trail Mix, Grapes)
2. Rain Coats
3. Bathing Suit
4. Extra Socks
5. Pocket Knife (a la Curt Hesselink)
6. Trail Map
7. Journal
8. Camera (Canon Rebel XS)
9. Head Lamps (Petzl 15 lumin, Black Diamond 70 lumin)
10. Water (3Litres)
11. Wallets
12. Phones

We left the apartment at about 9:50 to make our first important stop of the day. We had to get our pal Drew. Drew is a good brother who often joins our little adventures and often ends up with toys and gadgets necessary for our survival. Seriously, the dudes got more toys than 'r' Us. He's pretty knowledgeable on outdoors stuff and the man can fix just about anything that can be broken. Anyways, Drew brought along his own pack of food and supplies for the day and ended up having a compass and GPS which ended up being pretty sweet! That's Drew on the right rockin out in Everton with some waterproof flashlights (toys)! Ladies?

So we grabbed Drew and headed out Victoria to Claire Rd. so we could take Highway 6 to the QEW. We stopped on Claire to grab some Subway and head out 6. Now, as a friend/canoe partner once taught me, Viva La Vida is an incredible driving soundtrack and my awesome wife remembered this little fact and hit the old play button just outside of town. It seemed to be smooth sailing until we got to the QEW and then disaster struck! What we theorized was gas company employees staging an accident in order to cause hundreds of drivers to burn more fuel turned out to be an "unexpected collision" on the road ahead. Not checking the traffic report was our first mistake and we immediately took note to check the traffic before heading out for our second leg of the trail.

As we sat in traffic we ran out of Coldplay and promptly threw on some Jay-May (John Mayer) because we are hard to the core. We watched a lot of BMW drivers refuse to let anyone into their lane towards the exits and we had a nice tow truck driver tell us to take the next exit to Burlington before letting us into his lane (we later saw a collision between said BMW and said tow-truck as two DBs attempted to speed past traffic on the shoulder thus claiming their importance over the rest of us non-specials).

We had a choice to make. Do we sit in traffic for 3 hours of what should be a 90 minute drive? Or do we head home and count our losses? Well, Kattina had something in her nostrils, it was close, it was big, it was calling, it was MEC. I think I may begin to call it MECca because just as every good Muslim must journey to Mecca once in their life so must every good, true, pure hearted camper/hiker/biker/canoer/climber and anyone else who has a fondness of the outdoors travel to MEC(ca)!

Now before you all go running to MEC(ca) I should warn you that it is easy to find yourself broke after only an hour of exploring its depths because it seems like there's always a new thing to discover and/or buy! Usually buy.

Luckily we were already in need of some climbing bags and chalk and we were able to stay relatively focused.

Kattina and I walked out with two climbing bags, a bag of climbing chalk, a magnesium fire starter and an all weather note pad which works like a dream! All in all a pretty cheap time at MEC(ca).

In the parking lot we fuelled up with some peanuts and water and resolved to kick Bruce where it hurts...on the trail! We got back on the highway and after a quick exit and a recalibration got back onto the highway again, this time in the right direction. We got through traffic and showed up near the U.S border and more importantly Queenston Heights Park!

We arrived at the park at 2:17pm after a drive that was nearly double the length in time it should've been. Queenston Heights Park is where the Southern Terminus of the Bruce is located. The terminus is marked by a cairn which was a neat stone pillar with an arrow in the top. Upon closer inspection I noticed a keychain in the cairn and upon even closer inspection I noticed it had a little note from an old book inscribed on it. The note said "...and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8". I thought it was fitting considering the three of us were going on a walk. In true geocaching fashion I replaced the keychain with a pen that read, and sometimes wrote Jesus Loves Me.

Now if you're parking at Queenston Heights Park, it can be a bit confusing to find the trail. We learned this quickly. After a little visit to the General Brock Monument and a quick trip to the washroom, we were able to get our bearings and find ourselves pointed in the right direction.

0.01km - As we headed through a crowded park towards a thickly forested trail, the reality of the adventure started to set in and I got excited. High fives were in order.

0.07km - As we trekked toward the woods edge we happened to notice a park employee using a gas powered back pack blower to dust off the shop truck's driveway while another employee stood by and watched. Needless to say we were very proud of how our dollars contribute to city parks and recreation areas.

0.8km - We took our first steps into the bush and instantly we were showered with the song of cicadas looking to get laid. To our right, we had vineyards with their bird bangers on high alert and to our left we could hear the faint sounds of the highway.

The well compacted path was refreshing after the long drive in.

approx 1.8km - We find a fire pit surrounded by large sitting stones and an old rusted structure that upon further research turned out to be a Cold War era radio microwave communication tower! I was half way up the structure when we realized our second mistake of the journey; we had forgotten bug spray...in the car. The mosquitos were thirsty and quickly used their built in straws to slurp up our blood from our now flailing arms. We decided we better move on so as to be tougher targets for the vampires.

We came out of a clearing and noticed a quarry on our left side. We paused to attempt some photos of a downey woodpecker hard at work.

2.2km - To our left Drew noticed a foundation of some kind. The stone sided holes were about 5 feet deep and housed some old bottles and sticks. I noticed there was a water pipe leading into the hole closest to the trail. We noticed a wooden post opposite the holes that read Canada Trust. These holes have since been referred to as The Bank.

2.3km- We walked out to this massive arena like formation of rock and tree and moss that was literally 'awe' inspiring and we stopped as Drew snapped some pics. We heard a scream and turned quickly and ready to defend. It was Kattina, she had realized that her hand was very close to a cicada shell. No biggie. She's okay now.

We found a staircase not far from the arena which had a placard reading 1000 and we're still unsure what to make of it.

2.5km - Lunch time! We found a little hill not far from the stairs that had some nice seating where could eat our salad with our hands and catch some wind. We dubbed it Lunch Hill.

As we hiked on we found ourselves at a great pace enjoying the sound of roaring golf carts on the right and enjoying the view of amazing rocks on the left. I came around one bend to find a Scarlet Tanager in the middle of the trail and I called Drew to bring his camera as he was focussing in, the little guy decided to fly away, but his colours were amazing!! We soon realized that our water supply was running out and we didn't have a pump to purify any water...

5.3km - We came to a side street near the highway leading into St.Davids. We passed by an old yellow Massey Ferguson tractor sitting by the river. We took a little detour into a trailer park and asked a kind woman if there was a corner store nearby where we could perhaps replenish our liquids. She told us to head to Orchard Glen and said, "it's a bit of a walk but you'll make it." It's good to know we weren't going to die.

Once we reached Orchard Glen we were happy to find the produce clerks of St.Davids to be as friendly as their reputation would suggest. The youngster was more than eager to fill up our 3 bottles and show me to the washroom where I obeyed the sign to 'please keep the washroom tidy' and yet still I managed to blow out a double flusher. Outside we downed an aloe and wheatgrass drink that promised to re-energize us (and I won't say it didn't deliver) and we ate some of the most sour grapefruit these lips have ever had the pleasure of being completely numbed by. After a short rest and a quick map check we were back on the Bruce!

The end of our first leg was near. We walked on knowing we had less than 2km to go.

We found ourselves on one of the many road sections Bruce has to offer and noticed a turtle completely flattened on the side of the road. Kattina was sad. Moving on.

5.8km - After the short-ish road section we re-entered the forest and took note of how much lower the temperature is in the forest. As we walked the winding final section we came to a spring of water pouring out of a concrete box looking thing. We were able to look into the box and determine it could make a cool spelunking experience had we the time or energy. Maybe another day.

Somewhere between here and the park there was a large puddle in the trail caused by dinks who like to ride ATV's and rip up the trail. We noticed some little heads sticking out of the water like little spies. They were frogs! We caught one for a picture and so Kattina could touch a frog. We let him go and gave him our best. I think he was excited and ran home to tell his friends he'd be on FaceBook.

7km - 6:00pm We emerge on a road with the most confusing trail markers ever and notice a spray painted arrow with the letters BT beside it. Thanks Graffiti. We look where the arrow is pointing in time to see some kids scatter and a passenger train go right through where they had been standing. We push it to get up the hill. It's a good one, but we make it. And to our right, Fireman's Park! We've made it to the 7km point! We walk down the stairs to the pavilion where a big yellow table reads respect across the top of it. Kinda like the table was giving us props. I looked for a fist to bump but couldn't find it. High fives were in order.

We hung out at this park for a bit and watched a sixty something year old man throw a ball for his miniature schnauzer. As we munched our trail mix and downed our water we wondered, 'how are we getting back to our car?' We tried calling a friend in St.Catharines to see if we could get him to make a little trip but he was out of town, which we kind of already knew but thought it couldn't hurt to call. We called a cab to see how much it would cost to take us back to Queenston Heights Park and did some simple math coming to the conclusion that $24 cab fare plus a tip was a bit steep. We looked at the Schnauzer dude. He was walking towards his car. I ran up and asked him if he was able to get us to the park and he responded with this. "Normally, I would just drive you there but to be honest I just smoked a joint and I'm wasted so I've got to go straight home." I looked sideways at him and I think he noticed because he smiled real big and hopped in his car and drove off. I hustled back to the pavilion to share the news with my compadres that the senior citizen couldn't drive us because he was too high...True story.

Anyways, we took a quick survey and decided to just hike it back.

Now, normally the story would end here but there was a rumbling, a tumbling, a tiny earthquake in Kattina's belly. It took place very close to the old Massey mentioned earlier and we needed to find cover. We looked left. We looked right. We ran into the forest. Drew went up ahead. I hung back. Kattina found herself against a tree somewhere in the middle. It's a good thing she thought to snag some toilet paper from that park washroom at the beginning of the hike!

Now it was smooth, turd free sailing from here on. We moved quickly, knowing the way ahead. No need to follow blazes. We knew where we were going. Joints were achy. Hills were brutal. Feet were on fire. We had to make it out.

Past the golf course.

Past the rock formations.

Past Lunch Hill.

Up the stairs marked 1000.

Past the stone arena.

Past The Bank.

Past the Cold War era radio microwave communication tower.

The cicadas seem louder now.

We can see the end of the forest.

We exit the forest and get rid of the added weight of garbage picked up off the trail. We start to get excited to be near the car. As we talk we start to figure that maybe next time we'll do two vehicles and have one at the end of the trail to take us back to our original parking spot. We talk about how awesome it would be to sit by Lake Ontario and enjoy a hotdog. But then we start to lose the feeling of hunger and just want to get home.

We get back to the car at 8:23pm and take off our shoes. We drive straight home in 90 minutes listening to Ben Harper's Fight for Your Mind most of the way.

We drop Drew off and we head home. Leave everything in the car. Give me my bed.

Done.

So what did we learn?

We learned that the journey seems like forever when you can't see the end. As fun as it was, we were tired and sore and didn't have enough food. The end seemed like a tall tale. It's kind of like life when it gets tough. We start to focus on the pain or other factors rather than the end goal. We see hills as mountains and creeks as oceans. It's easy to lose focus of the goal but all it takes is for us to trek on and to not lose hope in the one who has trekked the trail before us.

We learned 3L of water is not enough for 2 people on a 14km hike.

We learned calories are our friend!

We learned to pack toilet paper and probably a trowel.

We learned bug spray is always a good idea.

We learned cotton bras should not be worn hiking.

We learn that doing hard stuff together and with friends is WAY better than doing it alone.

Thanks Bruce for the first leg of this journey. We'll see you very soon to walk all over you again. xoxo.

Zach & Kattina & Drew