Since buying my van, I’ve tried to go out camping or traveling in it as much as I possibly can. Between my normal day job and the van having modifications done on it, this hasn’t been exactly easy. So when the opportunity presents itself I typically do whatever I can to ensure that it happens.
About a week ago, a few friends of mine suggested that we go for a Saturday night camping trip to Lake Prespa - a large lake that borders Albania, Greece, and Macedonia. It is about a 40 minute drive, so nothing too crazy, but more significant than just parking somewhere close to Pogradec and sleeping.
The days leading up to our trip the weather had been a bit fickle. Each morning we would have rain - sometimes quite heavy - and then the sun would come out and dry everything to the point that you wouldn’t even know it had been raining. Naturally, this resulted in us checking the weather frequently. As anyone who has looked at weather reports would know, they aren’t ever 100% reliable. But each day that week the reports had been almost spot on which gave us even more confidence that Saturday would be no different - rain, and lots of it. We made the decision to just play it by ear and wait to decide what to do when the time came.
I woke up Saturday morning with a headache. While not an uncommon occurrence for me, it does affect my motivation levels to do things like camping. To make things worse, the sky had opened up over night and was absolutely dumping buckets. I texted one of the guys to see if he still wanted to go. He was hesitant. But, he said, another of our group was insisting. They asked me to meet them for a coffee to discuss and make a final decision.
When I got outside the rain had let up slightly but not entirely. We started chatting about when to leave, and what to do. The idea was floated that we could go, and if the weather got really bad we could always turn around and come back. Worst case scenario was we go for a drive and have lunch by Prespa before coming home. I still wasn’t too keen. Within a couple of minutes, the clouds blew over and the sun came beaming through a clear blue sky. It was all the motivation I needed. We parted ways and agreed to meet a bit later to start the drive.
In the two hours that it took us to get things together the sun had come and gone a few times, and each time it left the rain came through. We began our drive with the windshield wipers on, and with high hopes that when we arrived at Prespa those droplets would be gone entirely. As we drove towards the mountain we would have to cross to get to the other lake, the clouds didn’t look too promising.
Knowing that if it was too bad, we could easily turn around and go home to sleep in our warm, dry beds, we pressed on. Still hoping for the best, but knowing that worst wouldn’t be that bad. As we crossed over the pass, up ahead a small sliver of a rainbow showed itself in the sky. A sign of hope. Because, obviously, there couldn’t be a rainbow without the sun, right?
Coming down the other side of the mountain we were greeted by the sight of Lake Prespa. Sun coming from the west, and rain in the northeast. We pressed on, still hoping for the last of the rain to clear out before we settled.
The final leg of the drive was through the sunlight. We knew that we were surrounded by rainclouds, but we had made it this far and we definitely weren’t going to go home without giving this the dedication it deserved. We came to our campsite which ended up being surprisingly dry despite the scattered rain throughout the day. As we set up camp (me finding the most level place to park, and a few of the other guys setting up their tents) the rain drizzled. But by now, we had committed. We were doing this and at this point it would take a torrential downpour to stop us.
As we sat around the fire chatting and laughing we watched the rainclouds move along the mountain on the opposite side of the lake from us. Constantly being alert in case we would want to jump into the van or tents to avoid being completely soaked. A few hours passed and the moon rose shining brightly. It looked like we were in the clear. Around 8pm, one of the guys looked up at the mountain again and noticed a faint light in the sky… he and I had talked about something like this before, but I didn’t expect to ever see it. And I especially never thought I’d be in a position to take photos of it.
It was a rainbow, without the sun.
(Yes, technically, it was by the sunlight reflected off the moon, but just let me have this one okay?…)
Not only did I not know this phenomenon existed, but even if I did know I wouldn’t have expected to witness it. And the only reason I had the opportunity was because I didn’t give in to my initial, gut reaction of being pushed inside by the rain and my throbbing head. So many times in my life I have had to make seemingly unimportant decisions about things like this. The more it happens, the more I realize that even if I am absolutely miserable in the moment and am regretting my decision, once the experience is over I am almost always happy that I went. I am a firm believer that we grow more during the challenges than from the things that come easy. So, let’s reconsider more. Rather than looking at decisions based on “How do I feel about it right now?” let’s look at them in the light of “What will I learn from this? And how might I grow?”