Pride Member Abby Sheely shared her encounter with nature, all the while raising money for Animal organizations through the ResQWalk app.

I was actually on vacation during the Pridestrong week long, but still wanted to participate. I downloaded the ResQWalk app after hearing about it through other pride members. I love kayaking on vacation, so I secured my phone to my life jacket and turned on the app. My first kayaking trip was short due to the sinking sun, but I still made it up to the beginning of the Cedar River Reserve. My dad and I came into this little area off to the right, we tuned the corner and spotted these huge birds. There were three Sandhill Cranes (on what I think may of been a nest) on one of the small islands in the shallow water. We took a few pictures from a respectable distance and headed out so we wouldn’t disturb them. A few days later we went back to that little area and were determined to kayak up the entire reserve to the middle of town (Cedar near Lake Leelanau). Along the way we saw plenty of Sandhill cranes, Kingfishers, frogs and 3 adorable otters playing and eating something very crunchy! It took us two and a half hours to kayak all the way up to Cedar. My dad also scooped up a drowning moth near the end of our trip. Once it dried off, it crawled up my dad face and sat along the inside of his hat, almost like it was thanking him. As we pulled out our kayaks from the water at a public dock, a big snake slithered out of the boards from the tall grass next to it. It had some unsettling, yet beautiful gray/blue eyes! Once we returned from vacation I did another ResQWalk while I was working at the Columbus Zoo (retail) and had to walk to a cart at the back of the zoo. Walking there and back was a mile total. This was such an amazing experience, and to spend it emersed in nature was even better. Pridestrong!

Reproduced from Facebook.com/truepridestrong with the permission of Abby Sheely.