Looking for Beauty and Kindness

I declared that today would be spent looking for beauty and kindness wherever I went. That started out early, since we wanted to leave for a camping weekend (at last) as early as possible.

Beauty bonus: out in time for sunrise.

I hit the ground running, trying to get to Tractor Supply right after they opened. Ha. The traffic gods had other plans and I got to wait a lot, which was okay—more time listening to NPR. And I did encounter kindness when the sweet worker who checked me out also loaded all my 50-pound horse and chicken food bags and the deceptively heavy salt. She said she was stronger than most of the men there.

Morning beauty.

There was much running around, sweating, and chore performance before we could leave, and Lee hurt his back hitching the Jeep to the motorhome. Yet, we survived and drove northeast for a long time, during which Lee was kind to a trucker who needed the lane we were in at a run-down gas station. The guy had a cool big rig—he was taking it to a truck show!

We managed to make it to Lake Bob Sandlin State Park before the office closed, which felt miraculous considering the amount of slow-moving vehicles and construction delays we hit. You know a car is slow if we pass it!

The park entrance was humming.

We changed to a more level site, so we lost our lake view, but the piney woods are also lovely, and there are plenty of birds to enjoy.

Not a bad site.

Helping Lee because his back hurt made me end up sore from crawling in the ground and floor, but that’s what good spouses do for each other!

Bonus hummingbird beauty.

I found lots more beauty as I walked around the camping area after we were set up. There’s even a lot of beautyberry here, which speeds up one’s search for beauty!

I ate some. Sorta minty.

I did find the lake and many woodland plants, so I believe I did what I set out to.

By focusing on good stuff, small annoyances like the bedroom slide and the leveling system not working seem insignificant. I’m just gonna go look at plants and listen to birds tomorrow. Yes.


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Author: Sue Ann (Suna) Kendall

The person behind The Hermits' Rest blog and many others. I'm a certified Texas Master Naturalist and love the nature of Milam County. I manage technical writers in Austin, help with Hearts Homes and Hands, a personal assistance service, in Cameron, and serve on three nonprofit boards. You may know me from La Leche League, knitting, iNaturalist, or Facebook. I'm interested in ALL of you!

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