Do something that scares you

I read somewhere once that you should do something that scares you once in awhile... So, with this in mind I set my alarm clock Saturday night for 5:50 am. My daughter, Hope had asked me to go for a hike in the morning to see the sunrise at the top of the mountain near my parent's house in Truckee. This sounded like a fabulous idea.. at first. Laying in bed, I thought more about this. At six in the morning it's DARK. And there are bears in Truckee! My parents have seen quite a few in their yard over the years. What was I thinking? Hiking? In the dark? With bears?

Maybe Hope would oversleep. No such luck- she walked in my room at 5:47... before my alarm even went off. I couldn't let her go alone, not when there might be bears! I put on two jackets, gloves, and my shoes. We grabbed a flashlight and headed out into the darkness. It was 18 degrees outside.

As we headed off the road onto the dirt trail, I took my hood off. I needed to be able to listen for bears! The stars provided more light than my dad's flashlight. From time to time, snow in scattered patches crunched under our feet. I kept moving forward in the darkness and up the hill as the sun began to peek over the mountain. Once, I spotted a dark shape off the trail. I held my breath, and was relieved to find that it was only a stump in the distance.

Light slowly replaced the darkness as we neared the top of the trail almost an hour later. Warm pinks and oranges painted the cold morning sky. We'd made it in the frozen darkness. All the way to the top-- without seeing a single bear. Rewarded with a beautiful sunrise on the first day of December.