The Journey Chapter 52: The Dream and Other Things

I HEARD FROM BEV TODAY

I actually hear from her most days while she is on the trail, which is really rather amazing considering the poor cell service in parts of the country.

What is also amazing is her tone when I talk to her.  As you might suspect, she is tired practically every night she sets up camp, to be expected after carrying a full pack up and down hills for dozens of miles.  But the thing is, her tone is remarkably upbeat when I talk to her. She makes no mention of the downed trees she climbs over daily, some of them massive pines and firs, resembling that game Pick Up Sticks we played as children. She makes no mention of the heat or the mosquitoes or the river crossings or the hunger or thirst or assorted bumps and bruises, of which she has her fair share.

Instead, she always talks about the incredible things she saw, or the peaceful, easy feelings she experiences while on trail, or the sounds of nature, or, or, or . . .

I mention this because in the last six month I have spent quite a bit of time around hikers, and have watched hundreds of them on YouTube, and they are always talking about how tired they are or how much they hurt or, or, or . . .

But not my sixty-two year old wife.

Get out the colored pencils and shade me in the color of impressed.

SUMMERS OF COMMUNAL LOVE

I’m going to ask you to follow the bouncing train of thought in this section; I promise there is a common thread.

Driving around in Puddle Walker reminds me, a bit, of the 60’s, the brightly-colored vans, buses, young kids and not-so-young kids traveling around the country, running from or running towards, take your pick, every story different, every reason varied.  Many of those young-at-heart ended up in communes, some in cities, some in the countryside, and I would venture a guess that 99% of those communes, and that may be a low guess, no longer exist today, sixty-odd years later. The plans were grand; the execution of those plans faulty.

I’ve read a great deal about those communes, and a large percentage of them gave up the ghost because, humans being humans, they could not agree about how the commune would be run, the basic rules of behavior, the how do we find harmony as a group rules.

And I thought about the nomads of today, traveling the highways and byways, living out of vans, living out of cars, buses, RVs, trailers, working as the need arises, many choosing to settle for weeks in small communities of other nomads, out in the desert, in the forests, the rules of community much more relaxed than in the communes of old, sort of like if you don’t like the group you are in, start up your engine and go find another group rules, no formal declaration of community but a community all the same.

Which led me to remembering the neighborhood I grew up in, Tacoma, Washington, North End Neighborhood, and no, this will not be a starry-eyed reminiscence of the old days, how they were so much better than today; this is simply an observation of what I saw, born from a curiosity about how times change, and why they change.

When I was a kid, I just assumed all neighborhoods were like ours; perhaps they were not. I truly don’t know. All I do know is our neighborhood was a special place for a kid to spread his wings.  Neighbors in our neighborhood were on watch constantly, not in a paranoid way, but rather a “this is our neighborhood, and no man is an island” sort of way.

Us kids would have wiffleball games and neighbors would sit out on their porches cheering us on, while other neighbors would set out tables with cookies and milk for the participants.  If someone was sick in our community, neighbors brought meals to them, ran errands for them, genuinely cared for their well-being.  It was special being a child in that neighborhood. I remember clearly walking to my friend’s house, a block away, and having adults shout out “Hey, Billy, how are you today, young man,” and how special that made me feel, and without exaggerating I could share fifty more stories from that time, pounding home the fact that it truly does take a village to create a safe, friendly, cooperative, compassionate neighborhood.

There is a common thread in those ramblings, but you may have to think hard to find it.

Are there neighborhoods like that today? Surely there must be, just as I am sure there are successful communes scattered around the landscape of America in 2023, but I feel safe in saying their numbers have drastically diminished in the last sixty years, and I wonder why that is. I make no judgement about it. I am simply being curious.

Meeting America one handshake at a time. It’s going to be a fascinating journey, and it begins, most likely, September 1^st when my nursing duties come to an end.  If I’m lucky, I will come across some neighborhoods, like the one I grew up in, and that will lighten my heart and increase my resolve that there really is hope for the human race.

AND JUST LIKE THAT, IN THE SNAP OF YOUR FINGERS, . . .

Bev is done!

She finished Oregon, like a champ, came home, and decided she had accomplished what she wanted to accomplish.  She had some epiphanies about herself, she challenged herself and met the challenge, she met some of the greatest people in one of the greatest communities on earth, saw some sights only a figurative handful of humans have seen, and declared herself done.

No, there were no injuries. No, there were no moments when she decided it was too hard to continue.  She thought about her family, her loved ones, the life she had/has in Olympia, the future she wants to begin, and made the decision that this particular thru-hike has given her everything she wanted to receive from it.

Turn the page; the next chapter of her life is about to begin.  It is August 17^th and I can’t remember seeing Bev so content and relaxed and happy.

And I had a strange epiphany, for lack of a better word; I decided I like having a home base, a place to return to, rather than spend the entire winter in Arizona or some other drier and hotter than Hades location. So I’m leaning towards a month on the road, a week back in Olympia, another month on the road, another week in Olympia, and on and on we go, where the bouncing ball lands, nobody knows.

And, to end this section on a very high note, Puddle Walker has new tires, and the mechanic did a diagnostic on her, and she passed with flying colors.  Which leads into the next thought in my brain, which is to keep Puddle Walker because, well, I love my home on wheels.  It is just so me, you know?

Which all leads to the point that I will probably stay around the west coast this winter, looking for mild weather/temps, and then maybe/probably/wishfully head east for a longer trip in the spring once everything thaws out.

Then again . . . laughing out loud, diabolically, from the bowels of Puddle Walker.

AS WE WONDER

The name of the website was chosen with a specific purpose in mind. It had nothing to do with Bev’s 1,000 hiking venture, and yet it had everything to do with it. It had nothing to do with living out of a shuttle bus, and yet it had everything to do with it, and it had nothing to do with seeing new vistas and discovering old sunsets, and yet . . .

The website, the selling of the house, the purchasing of a bus, the scouring over maps, the hike, it all suckled the titties of life’s wonders.  We wanted, we want, and we shall want, to discover as many wonders as possible and to share them with you all, and that has not changed at all. I feel like the first chapter in the Grand Adventure is coming to a close, the Pacific Crest Trail now just something to hold close to our bosoms and cherry-pick memories from as the years slowly progress.

Chapter Two is about to begin, and I/we are very excited to share it all with you.

I hope you continue to travel with us and, if you are new to our website and YouTube channel, welcome. Know that you are all appreciated.

While on the topic of YouTube, it’s been awhile since I posted a video, and the reason should be fairly obvious: I have been in a driveway, stuck in Suburbia, for over three weeks.  Unless you want a video of me pushing a guy in a wheelchair, you’ll have to wait a bit longer.  But the drone is charged and ready to fly; the camera is busting at the seams to capture incredible moments in life; and I am more than ready to start posting videos once again.

THE DREAM

Let me share something with you, something I have never told anyone in the fifty-three years since my life took a U-turn.

Fifty-three years ago, my father died.  Those of you who know me already know the story; for some of you who haven’t heard it, allow me to be brief.

My father was my rock, easily the most-influential person in my life, and three months after I turned twenty, my rock dropped dead of a heart attack. It was shattering, and in many ways, his death, and the loss of my support system, my emotional lifesaver, was something I have not recovered from, in some corners of my psyche, all these years later.

Three days after his death, on a cold January night, I found sleep, and my sleep was interrupted by a dream.  In that dream I was falling, surrounded by complete darkness, falling into a chasm of unknown depth, no frame of reference for my senses to latch onto, terror my only constant as the fall continued with no ending to be seen.

It was terrifying, and I awoke drenched in sweat, short of breath, as frightened as I’ve ever been in my life.

That dream followed me through college, through my jobs, through my marriages, a constant companion for fifty-two years.

If I were a psychiatrist, and this were therapy, I would tell you that the dream represented my feelings of being helpless, being out-of-control, having no foundation upon which I could reshape my life . . . but that would simply be the guess of a person not trained in the studies of the mind.

All I can tell you, in wrapping up this section of the journey, is that I have not had that dream since selling our home, purchasing Puddle Walker, and steering onto the open road.

I will let you draw your own conclusions as to why that is.

I’m just damned glad to be rid of that dream.