We just returned from a five hour trek through a frozen swamp. It was exhilarating crossing logs, creating our own shaky log bridges across treacherously deep swamp waters and then walking (him) or crawling (me) over them.
It was terrifying when we fell through the ice and ended up in deep water and even more frightening when we realized we were lost, soaked, the temperature was dropping down to 12 degrees and we might not get out of there. Our bones might decorate the swamp just as the skull of the small creatures we saw going in decorated it.
Thankfully we’d packed Clif bars as emergency rations and we ate them to get enough calories to encourage our bodies to make heat to dry our jeans and clear our minds. Not that it worked all that well as a heating trick. Our jeans froze hard as boards when subjected to temps in the teens and a brisk wind. But it did clear our minds sufficiently to find a way out again.
Once we arrived home the obvious question for me (that I’d been contemplating since our fourth hour slogging through the swamp) was what tea was suitable to serve as a warming celebration beverage after such an adventure? I picked this one and added a bit of honey. Mmmm. It tastes like victory. Swampy victory.
It really is a yummy coconut tea and the addition of the honey and Silk creamer makes it even yummier!
Preparation
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you should be a writer ; )
I’d definitely freak out. Glad you’re both okay! And glad that you found an appropriately celebratory tea.
Win.
This is terrifying! I am not an outdoors person at all… I would have been curled up in the fetal position in the swampy snow, crying my eyes out. Happy you guys had such an exhilarating adventure!
@takgoti We actually freak out at different things so it works out. I freak at dead animals and dead animal parts so when I saw the skull (and the dead turtle which i didn’t mention) I freaked. He freaks out at being in water or being wet. Falling through the ice was frightening for both of us, of course, but he was totally freaked for a half hour afterwards because he was wet, while I was fine with being wet. We were both worried about being lost, but that is something that works out really well if you can maintain your head and analyze the situation, which we were able to do once we had calories flowing through our veins again. So it was all good.
As to the celebratory tea, I decided that this was clearly a test of tea and that whatever tea I picked would have its rating pushed up since in distress and joy I picked that one.
@teaplz It was mostly fun with just a few terrifying moments. And we were warmly bundled so even though we got wet we were fine in the end. I have to tell you that I have tried the refuse-to-move-and-cry strategy and it didn’t work for me. I was hanging from a cliff afraid to go up or down and started crying saying that I wouldn’t move. It was pointed out to me that movement is necessary and it’s a life lesson I’ve taken with me. I’m sure you would have pulled out of the fetal position once you noticed that the snow was cold. ;)
@Heyes Definitely a win!
@Teaspoon I used to be a writer/editor. Programming and project management pay better and people treat you better.
Wow…Awesome adventure! My husband and I freak out at different things too. At some point we take turns saying to the other, “Ok, don’t freak out on me!” It’s a balance that works for us. This makes me think…it’s been a little too long since we did anything like this. Must remedy.
@LENA What led us to that particular swamp in the first place was a geocache. You have some of the prettiest geocaches in the country in the Murfreesboro area. You could take a look. Some of the areas there are just beautiful to hike through.
Niiice. I’ve done a little geocaching myself. I bought my mom a GPS a few years ago to get her into it as well. Murfreesboro has a few cache site that are in really old cemeteries…very cool…and really nice stories behind them.
you should be a writer ; )
I’d definitely freak out. Glad you’re both okay! And glad that you found an appropriately celebratory tea.
Win.
This is terrifying! I am not an outdoors person at all… I would have been curled up in the fetal position in the swampy snow, crying my eyes out. Happy you guys had such an exhilarating adventure!
@takgoti We actually freak out at different things so it works out. I freak at dead animals and dead animal parts so when I saw the skull (and the dead turtle which i didn’t mention) I freaked. He freaks out at being in water or being wet. Falling through the ice was frightening for both of us, of course, but he was totally freaked for a half hour afterwards because he was wet, while I was fine with being wet. We were both worried about being lost, but that is something that works out really well if you can maintain your head and analyze the situation, which we were able to do once we had calories flowing through our veins again. So it was all good.
As to the celebratory tea, I decided that this was clearly a test of tea and that whatever tea I picked would have its rating pushed up since in distress and joy I picked that one.
@teaplz It was mostly fun with just a few terrifying moments. And we were warmly bundled so even though we got wet we were fine in the end. I have to tell you that I have tried the refuse-to-move-and-cry strategy and it didn’t work for me. I was hanging from a cliff afraid to go up or down and started crying saying that I wouldn’t move. It was pointed out to me that movement is necessary and it’s a life lesson I’ve taken with me. I’m sure you would have pulled out of the fetal position once you noticed that the snow was cold. ;)
@Heyes Definitely a win!
@Teaspoon I used to be a writer/editor. Programming and project management pay better and people treat you better.
Wow…Awesome adventure! My husband and I freak out at different things too. At some point we take turns saying to the other, “Ok, don’t freak out on me!” It’s a balance that works for us. This makes me think…it’s been a little too long since we did anything like this. Must remedy.
@LENA What led us to that particular swamp in the first place was a geocache. You have some of the prettiest geocaches in the country in the Murfreesboro area. You could take a look. Some of the areas there are just beautiful to hike through.
Niiice. I’ve done a little geocaching myself. I bought my mom a GPS a few years ago to get her into it as well. Murfreesboro has a few cache site that are in really old cemeteries…very cool…and really nice stories behind them.