Summer Solstice

The Summer Solstice marked a significant day to me. It was a new day, a new season, a new career, a new life, and a new kind of love to share moving forward with Trae. That summer our new love would only blossom into something I could only have dreamed about in the past.

My new job was awesome! That first week of work was incredible. I immediately felt acceptance with my coworkers. I loved what we did as a company. What I was most excited for was beginning to travel. I would travel to places that we had relationships with community banks and help train their branch managers on how to signup merchants for their new amazing product BaZing.com! I was so anxious to get my feet wet, but it would be months before that would happen. In the meantime, I learned and developed my skill and spent every moment I could with friends and family anticipating a heavy travel schedule to come.

During that period Trae and I went out for many date nights. We went bowling, out to dinner, Honky Tonkin, we went for rides on the Harley. It was pretty amazing. Everything was going so well, we were even throwing around ideas for short little vacations over the summer.
One of the first trips we would take would be an overnight camping trip for the 4th of July to Mammoth Cave. After years of conversing about getting into camping we finally took a big step towards our goal and purchased backpacks, a tent, and all the essentials for that night. It was a super short trip packed full of adventure! We were both so excited about this trip. We packed the backpack the night before. The next day we left a little after lunch for the hour and half road trip to Mammoth Cave on the Harley. I wore the backpack the whole way. I'm not gona lie it was pretty uncomfortable the whole way. But I toughed it out, with a little complaining here and there LOL. When we finally arrived it was about 95 degrees!!!!
We set up the tent and went to grab a bite to eat at the restaurant there. We bought some waters and decided we were going to go for a walk to the lookout. We walked about 2 miles to lookout, rested for a few mins and then headed back to camp because it would soon be dark. I kept telling him that I wanted a fire so we  grabbed some wood along the way back. Trae successfully chopped the wood LOL and we got the fire started!  We rested on the picnic table and then decided to go to sleep since we were getting up early to go zip-lining and caving. That night was one of the most miserable nights I've had trying to sleep. It was so hot that we kept our rain fly off the tent, but that made everything in the woods around us so much louder. We shared a twin size air mattress laying head to toe trying not to touch each other. But throughout the night as the temperature started to drop I became cold from sweat, I wanted a sheet and I wanted to snuggle up next to him. We did our best to sleep that night but when the sun came up 3 hrs later it was pointless. I would say we got about 2 solid hours of sleep and about 3 naps in. I was ready to shower and pack up everything before our day of adventure got started.

After breakfast we were headed to go zip-lining at Mammoth Cave Adventures. This place was really cool, they offered a lot of different things to do. We chose to do the Primary course which consisted of 5 zip lines. It was so exhilarating feeling to wind hit your face. I would definitely do this again! Afterwards we headed to go have lunch and prepare for our big cave spelunking adventure that afternoon. While sitting there waiting for our cave tour to start I began getting a little nervous. Trae reassured me that I could this and everything was going to be fine. Then my excitement started taking over. We chose the "Introduction to Caving" tour. This was a 3- 3 1/2 hour tour. They gave us all the gear we needed which even included some spiffy coveralls! We hoped on the bus and headed to our entry point. It was a metal door that lead to a flight of 280+ stairs going down about 250 ft below the surface. As we descended I began to feel the temperature change. It was dark but surprisingly dry down there.

There were no creatures lurking in the crevasses other than cave crickets which at first freaked me out because they look like large spiders, but they are harmless and blind! We made our way through the passages off the beaten path and crawled through tight spaces. But it was so much fun! We even experienced what it would be like if we ran out of our light source, and that was the scariest part of it all! It was pitch black. The darkest moment of time I've ever been in. You literally could not even see your hand in front of you. And the craziest part is that your eyes would never adjust to the darkness! As we made our way through the 2 miles of the tour crawling and climbing we soon resurfaced. I felt accomplished! I felt like I had just conquered one of my biggest fears. It was awesome and I thank Trae for awakening the outdoor adventurous side to my soul that had been tucked away since I was kid. Since those days of riding my bike in the woods, and playing in the creeks all day long those many summers ago! We grabbed our first beer of the trip, relaxed and just talked with excitement about our tour, and how we couldn't wait to go again!  Life was so amazing at that moment. I had my best friend back!

XOXO .:TMarie:.