The Journey: Part 18

SEVEN DAYS, SEVENTY MILES

That’s how many days of hiking Bev has done, and the miles covered in that time, an average of ten miles per day, which makes me happy because that is what I wanted her to do starting out. There will be time, in the not-so-distant future, when she can kick out a twenty-mile day with some regularity, but first she must allow her body to become accustomed to the strenuous nature of thru hiking.  If she is going to complete this task, and do so in a healthy manner, and avoid injury, she must take it slow starting out.

There is, in fact, no reward for going faster.  The San Jacinto area is closed until March 31^st, due to deep snow and dangerous conditions, and that is only one-hundred miles from where I sit, so Bev rushing, at this point, is nonsensical.  And, once thru that ten-thousand-foot roadblock, she will still have five-hundred more miles of desert region before facing the Sierra, and their record snowfall, and their incredibly dangerous river crossings.

No, I am not over-dramatizing the situation.

So, there is no hurry whatsoever.

Interesting note: When Bev hikes another thirty miles, she will have thru-hiked more miles than I ever did in a thru hike, and I did it forty years ago.  YOU GO, BEV!

In the meantime, while she traverses this first section of the hike, the dogs and I are making friends and helping where help is needed.

It has now become commonplace for someone to walk by and say “Hi, Bill,” or “Hi, Windmill.”  Most of the hikers who started approximately when Bev did are bunched up within twenty miles of each other, so we tend to cross paths more often than you would think possible in a “wilderness.” And I find I am loving meeting people, learning about them, and allowing them to learn something about me.

Two Germans today, two Canadians, all new friends, plus reacquainting myself with five others I had already met. It was a full day of hiker love, and I’m smiling as I write that. I have not heard the sounds of friction, at any time during this trip, other than the wind, of course.

Tomorrow Bev and son will join me here, probably by noon, we will spend the night here, and then they will continue northward, the town of Warner Springs looming in the distance, maybe another twenty-five mile section. I will take the bus to that hamlet, find a place to settle, wait for my spouse, and spread some more hiker love where it is needed.

Still no roadrunner (beep, beep) and no signs of lizards do I see.  But the Santa Annas are blowing tomorrow, warm winds, bringing warmer temps, so I suspect to see creepy, crawly things in short order.

A LIFETIME LITTERED WITH CLUES

Growing up, every summer my dad had two weeks of vacation.  Usually, those two weeks involved a car trip to Seaside, Oregon, but on occasion, it would be a grand adventure, either to Los Angeles, or Charles City, Iowa, of St. Louis, Missouri, all cities where we had extended family.

One of my fondest memories from those car trips was that my dad would let me be the navigator.  He knew how fascinated I was with maps of any kind, and I guess he didn’t see much harm in me trying to tell him the best route to take for our destination; no harm meaning he probably already knew the route by heart, so why not let the little kid think he was doing something important?

I loved the nerdy kind of stuff, and I really loved car trips with my parents and, later on with friends, once I was old enough to drive. Unlike so many children today, faces buried in tablets and Androids, I was fascinated by the landscape, watching towns go by, looking at tall mountains, so tall as to seem fake, and antelopes and bear and cattle and, well, it all was food for my imaginative mind . . . and it’s been that way for as long as I can remember.

Mind you, I’m not talking about a casual romance with car trips. I totally immerse myself in them, become one with the scenery, find wonder in damned near everything I see . . . and that is why it comes as no surprise, to me, that I am enjoying this journey so much. This is food for my soul. I wake up in the morning energized in a way I had forgotten, the kind of energized I once felt, as a child, in a beat up Mercury, traveling Highway 2 to Iowa.

I love this lifestyle, and those words do not come close to accurately depicting what I am feeling. I feel like I am home on the road. It feels natural. It feels like something I will be quite comfortable doing from now on.

I have done my time with the manicured lawn and the white picket fence, with the neighbors so close that privacy is nothing more than a pipe dream. I was a good suburbanite soldier, played the game as best I could for decades, but now I have had enough. There is open road I want to drive down, natural ah-ha landscape I want to experience, and new people I want to shake hands with.

Time is running out, for me, for all of us, if you want to be brutally honest, and I aim to spend my remaining time reliving my childhood, one country intersection at a time.

Dad, wherever you are, thanks for planting the seed.

FIVE DAYS SHORT OF TWO MONTHS

As I write this, we are five days short of two months on the road.

That, quite frankly, blows my mind.

And we still have about five months to go on this current sojourn.

It has been two months since I watched television.

I have lost ten pounds because I no longer eat out of boredom.

I have made, conservatively speaking, over one-hundred new friends.

I have had so many “holy cow” moments that I would be hard-pressed to give an accounting of them all.

I have met more people from foreign countries, in two months, than I did in the lifetime prior.

I have had my assumptions tested, and shattered, on numerous occasions.

I have experienced the wonders of life, found a new appreciation for life, and begun to recognize glimpses of the man I once was, fifty years ago, before life carved out sharp angles where soft curves once could be found.

I have, hold onto your hats, friends, peace of mind, something I never thought I would have again.

Tears fall.