Photo Challenge: Waiting Yesterday I was on the Lake Alma Trail taking a photo of a spider when I realized that an impatient dog was standing silently on the trail behind me. She often strikes this pose as I pause to look carefully at something or take a photo. Hiker-dog rarely barks on the trail, but if I stand still for what she thinks is an unreasonable amount of time, she’ll let me know of her frustration with our pace.

I scanned through my photo library with “Waiting” as the topic and noticed several pics with hiking buddies waiting for something.Bob and I enjoyed stopping on the John Muir Trail to enjoy the scenery, filter water, or rest our legs. Below is another photo of Bob waiting with Zen-like contentment alongside the Ozark Highlands Trail. When he’s with a group, he enjoys waiting for the rest of us to catch up with him. Hiking buddy, Dale, stopped at a switchback on one of our Grand Canyon backpacking trips. This photo of him waiting became one of my favorites from that time because it captured the sense of awe each of us felt on that winter trek. A few years ago, we were heading to the Rocky Mountain National Park. Our vehicle broke down, so we spent a day in Grainfield, Kansas. We ended up enjoying this day in a quiet town, rich in history and delicious pizza. We spent some time at the railroad tracks imagining what life as a hobo might be like. Shane was a good sport as we waited about 9 hours for repairs. Hiker-dog is waiting for sundown on her first planned backpacking trip on the Ozark Highlands Trail. This was about one month after she joined our family. Her story of adoption is in the second post of my OHT thru-hike. Below, Hiker-dog waits on a bluff overlooking the Current River in Missouri. She hiked almost all of the sixty-plus trails we scouted before narrowing the list to forty-three trails included in Five Star Trails: The Ozarks. This was the photo selected for the book cover by Menasha Ridge Press.
My last “waiting” photo is of my younger daughter waiting for clothes to dry on a family trip to the Grand Canyon. She stared at the dryer as if she might speed up the drying process. I think she inherited the impatience gene from her father.