Denali National Park, July 24, 2012

Tuesday found us spending the majority of the day inside Denali National Park as we took on two or three trails between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.

We passed up taking a shuttle into the Park past Savage River (or mile 15 on the Park Road).  The time commitment that it was going to take in addition to giving up control - of going from point-to-point at our pleasure - kept us from buying shuttle tickets or a tour package.

Neither one of us is the type to spend 11 to 13 hours in a park viewing scenery.  Maybe that's a little bit of a weakness.

We were perfectly content, however, to explore the trails near the Savage River and then hike approximately 1,700 feet up Mount Healy.

Both the Savage Rock and the Mount Healy trails challenged us a little bit. 

Nonetheless, we enjoyed the time - with a little bit of a slower pace - and reminisced about the hiking that we did in Yellowstone (2007), Glacier (2010), Kona (2011) and Yosemite (2012) over the years.

Earlier that morning, I read the day's entry from the "Uncommon Life:  Daily Challenge" devotional that talked about "An Infectious Love".

Dungy's "uncommon" key was that "God's passion for you is enthusiatic and real." 

He also made reference to people that "seemed to bring a childlike passion to almost every setting they are in".

I'm not a Debbie Downer by any means, but I'm not "that" type of individual either.  I wish I was, but often times the world sees that type of person as fake.  And not genuine.  That isn’t how I would like to be perceived.

But what Dungy was pointing out is that God wants us to communicate with Him.

I did while we were out on the trials:  In thought.  I couldn’t help but think of – upon seeing more of the Earth’s natural beauty – the worship song that we sing, “Our God is an awesome God, / He reigns from heaven above / with wisdom, power, and love; / our God is an awesome God.”

The other treat - as Waverly was ahead of me on the trail towards the top of Mount Healy – really was her having more of the childlike spirit as she was singing some of the songs from camp that even I was familiar with.