He was middle-aged and had this Indiana Jones like hat and he was very very tan with a mustache and a beard. He was wearing hiking boots and a fleece sweater, and his eyes were strikingly blue. I also noticed that he was missing a finger on one of his hands. This guy seemed like he was right off the pages of a book on exploring. He could have been an extra in “3:10 to Yuma”.

Anyhoo, we got off at our stop and I never even glanced back at the stranger. Once we got on the trail, CM jumped and made a little noise. I realized that he was standing 3 feet away from a deer! We all scrambled to get our cameras out. I got one shot of him and I think CM got some video. The kids were so giddy.

We knew this was the start to a great hike. (Mind you, we didn’t know at that time that we would be out there for 4 hours.) About 10 minutes later we turned a curve and we saw the guy from the bus. He was sitting down in the forest eating something. To my horror, Widget asked him what he was eating. He said he was picking huckleberries and eating them.

Huckleberries. I don’t know about you, but I have never eaten anything that just happened to be growing along side of a trail. I didn’t know what to say when he offered Widget a handful, but I decided to throw caution to the wind. This guy looked like he’d done this before and if he said they were okay to eat, he was probably right. (I mean, I know that huckleberries are edible, but my concern was that he had misidentified the plant.)

So I totally broke Rule #1 in my “Parental Playbook” — Don’t take food from strangers! This entire experience, from the day that I listed all of our stuff for sale on Craigslist, has really changed the way I view strangers. I have met so many new and interesting people. People that I would have never met had I would have stayed in that little box of an apartment. I walked through a forest and I stopped every now and then to eat friggin wild huckleberries! Yeah, “Old KJ” would have been terrified at the idea and that makes me happy and let’s me know that all of this was worth it.

After we left Glacier Park, disaster struck. I’ll tell you about it next time.

I don’t want this to be a drawn out account, but I’ll just say that every step was increasingly precarious the further down you went. As we went down I was holding Widget’s hand and CM was holding Midget’s. My hand started to sweat from the heat and I really began to panic. I worried that if he slipped he go right through my fingers.

The entire time we were hugging the side of the canyon and the trail was, at most, 2 feet wide. During his homeless days CM had hiked down to the bottom with a group of friends, so he was fearless as he descended. We stopped for a water break under a tree and then the fear really set in.

CM sat right down on the edge and the kids were right behind him. I managed to take a photo as CM’s request. Then he wanted to take video so he wasn’t holding their hands. I was too terrified. I could barely look up let alone move. I realized that if either of my babies fell over the edge, I would have to follow them. I know it sounds crazy, but I couldn’t let them go down alone.

Eventually, emphasis on “eventually”, CM realized I was scared and he said we should head back up. There was only one problem: I couldn’t move. My heart was pounding and my legs felt like jelly.

Once I got enough resolve to stand I started to hike back up. Very slowly and noticeably terrified. My son kept telling me, “Don’t be scared, mommy.” and he kept asking CM if I’m an adult why am I so scared? I definitely felt humiliated and weak that I was showing my children how afraid I was.

Which brings me back to my mother. My mother had been sick for a very long time starting from when I was a teenager. Even up until the day she died I never knew how sick she was. Afterwards, I realized it was because she hid her pain from us (my siblings and I). I was really mad that she did that for a long time because I think if I would have known, I would have really tried to make the most out of my time with her.

Today, for the first time, I understood why she did what she did. You don’t want your children to see you as weak. You want them to think that you’re Supermom and that there’s nothing you can’t handle. Maybe my kids still think I’m Supermom, Even so, now we all know what my kryptonite is. We are almost out of the park now and my heart is still pounding and I am embarrassed when I make eye contact with them.

…Maybe somethings are better left hidden. I want to crawl under a blanked and disappear.