We had been eagerly waiting for our road trip in Colorado and Utah for many months. After we landed in Denver, Colorado, we spent our first day of the road trip at the Rocky Mountain National Park. My daughter had displayed amazing patience on the previous day, at the airports and in the airplane, on our way to Denver. Our frequent travels has molded her into a patient traveler. Her only whimper had come when we had finally landed in Denver and she had found out that our hotel was still an hours worth of drive away from the airport.
On our first day at the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), we were looking forward to indulging in pristine nature, watching the beautiful scenic views, hiking among wildflowers, watching the wild animals and trying to spot the beautiful birds among the trees. We definitely got to do all of this and much more.
As we started our first hike, I knew that this was not going to be easy for my daughter . It was a 5 mile, moderately difficult hike. But I thought that this was an opportunity to not only be a little adventurous but also to teach her some perseverance. I knew that she would start complaining as we hiked further into the trail. The first 1.5 miles of the hike was beautiful. She hardly stuck to the hiking trail. She hiked most of the first 1.5 miles by jumping from one rock to the other and watching the least-chipmunks and the marmots play games with their friends. But complain, she definitely did after that 
. For a while, her complaints sounded very artificial and it was very easy for me to keep her going by telling her about how she could do anything if she just made up her mind.
But finally, the moment she was waiting for, arrived , when she tripped on a rock and fell flat on the ground, hurting her knee – giving her the perfect excuse to turn back home. It’s a wonder that there were no landslides on the rocky mountains, considering the shrill cry that she let out during the next 5 minuntes . I managed to calm her down. Stories from my childhood when I had nasty falls, seemed to convince her that her wounds had nowhere else to go but be cured. She actually started to trudge along the trail again giving her best shot. By now, we were a couple of miles into the hiking trail. But luck was definitely on her side as dark clouds started to kick in and it started to drizzle. We had not prepared ourselves for rain had to hike the 2 miles back to our car in pouring rain. We finally, reached our car about an hour later, thoroughly drenched and with no hope of changing into dry clothes because there were none. The temperature had dropped to upper 50s and we were shivering. The next couple of hours were spent drying ourselves and feeding our hungry stomachs. I think that a lesson in courage and perseverance in the face of bad weather and a persistent mother respectively, had already unraveled for my daughter that day.
What she hadn’t expected was the threat of another hike – a shorter 2 mile hike this time. She initially resisted it but knew that it was in vain. It turned out to a easy hike this time in spite of her “why do we have to hike so much in one day” complaints. But what we encountered during the hike blew us all away – a big black bear, right in the middle of our trail. Luckily, we had some smart fellow hikers who knew what to do when a big bear is staring right at you. As one of these hikers started shouting at the bear, the bear decided that the best thing to do was to turn his back on us and carry on with his life.
The bear encounter, however, was enough to leave a lasting impression on my daughter. The remainder of the day was dedicated to talking to her about whether bears attack humans and what can be done when that happens. The inexperienced ‘bear’ person that I am, I had very few answers to her questions but managed to appear courageous. As for my daughter she came back to the hotel and journaled her fears away by writing about it.
It had been an eventful day for my daughter. She had a couple of lessons each on both courage and persevence. As for me, my horizons on experiences related to raising my child had only widened.
I am so glad to see that the natural, awesome, and unexpected encounters in life left a positive impression on all. What an experience!
We did some of these hikes at RMNP last year. A couple of miles into the hike, my son wanted to pee and refused to go “open air”. I had the privilege of teaching him how to run 2 miles, get into the car and drive 5 more mins to the nearest visitors center.
Took a lot of courage and perseverance (on my part
yeah, i certainly agree that parents need more courage and perseverance these days
. but again, unless we learn that in childhood, how can we be prepared? 