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...Interesting how all those hikes down the horse town roads and up the desert hills eventually lead to a store down the highway! ...Just like every camp trip and summer camp memory; being used to the great outdoors, and then you head back and you suddenly see the rush hour again! ...Always a weird sensation.
I learned last week from a trip to this Walgreens with my mom and dad that there's more to this outlet than medicine for when you're sick. They actually have a lot of stuff; almost like a mini-Walmart without the neighborhood market! ...Now I'm GLAD this shop is nearby. I now know where to run to (in a literal way) when I want a sweet deal on cookies! ...And I've got a map to it now, so it's PERFECT!
But speaking of running into stuff, I ran into a few surprises called "Forks in the road"...
I came across the crossroads I saw on the drive to Walgreens, but when I took a closer look at them, they turned into dirt roads that went off in crazy directions into the hills. The fact that they hid in the hills explained why I didn't see these roads from up on The Lookout or the Mega-Hill, and the fact that these roads were certainly NOT straight, explained why they didn't form a rectangle on my map as I expected!
...That was a rather puzzling encounter to figure out, but what puzzled me even MORE was that when I was on the Mega-Hill, it looked as though I PASSED the Walgreens! ...With this in mind, I couldn't understand why the Mega-Hill and the store were Parallel to the hill on my map. Was my map really THAT far off? ...OR did it just LOOK like I passed it... because I was looking down at it from far away at quite an obscure angle? Who knows An odd mixture of BOTH, perhaps? One thing for sure though, is It's AMAZING how different things look from different views, as well as what kind of illusions may come from them.
With such bewilderment in today's expedition, I realize that the map is not yet complete and I'm not done. On the other hand, my teachers and classmates said in our final week of school that we're never REALLY done. ...Besides, I've ALSO learned that there ARE maps with incomplete areas with question marks. And since the completion of this map is technically up to ME to decide, then I say I'm all done with the map now. Mission accomplished!
...Wow! ...A giant scale map, a trip around the Home Base perimeter, and 10 outdoor expeditions complete! All complete by the beginning of May! That's certainly a change from those 6 map quests and the crude map made in June of last year.
That 6th and final June expedition, though, was quite interesting! That was when my sister and I headed out BEYOND the map. Not just beyond last year's map, but THIS year's map as well! We went way up north and it was AWESOME!...
We agreed to do that again this summer, and I said that hopefully, my map will be ready for that by then. And NOW it is! ...The way-out-north area is not (and probably WILL not) be mapped, but all the area leading UP to it is now. And based on our last trip way out north... That's all we need.
With that, we have officially reached the end of the Expedition Journal. ...Now, am I going to do this whole travel-and-map-it-out gig yet AGAIN next year? ...I don't know! And at this point, I don't really CARE! A real traveler keeps moving forward, and that's what I plan to do too.