Hike4Autism

Do Not Hire This Man

2008-09-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

This last batch of posts (kindly updated by reliable Andre Laboy) was supposed to have been posted for your reading pleasure weeks ago, but Joe Mohn is officially the worst blog manager in the history of the Internet. But now they're all there. So read. Do it. Done. Finito!

Kiss My Royal American Part II

2008-08-31T18:49:00.000-07:00

Greybeard hears us and starts stirring. "Did you get Nomad up?"
"We asked, but he said he didn't want to come up."

We climb in our tents and get ready to go to sleep, but Greybeard's still rooting around outside. It sounds like he's taking a piss like he usually does in the morning, but I don't think much of it. Then when he still doesn't get in his tent, I remember he asked us if we ot Nomad up, which is usually Greybeard's job in the morning. I'm thinking he thinks it's morning, but I feel bad asking him, not wanting to insult the guy, so I keep my mouth shut.

"Now wait a minute..." Greybeard stops in his tracks, wondering out loud to himself.

"What time is it?" he asks us.

"9:00."

"Shoot. Really?"

"Yup."

"Well kiss my royal American. I thought my watch said 5:00."

And he climbed back into his tent and went to sleep.

Kiss My Royal American

2008-08-31T18:48:00.000-07:00

When the group I was hiking with decided to go into Yosemite Valley, one of our big planned stops was Half Dome. A bit of a touristy thing to do, but if it weren't good, it probably wouldn't be touristy.

The thing is just a giant piece of granite sticking straight up in the middle of a valley. One side is sheer cliff face, straight up a few thousand feet and the only way to get up it is to rock climb.

The back side, the easier side, has stairs cut right into the face and you can see the scars where the workers cut into the stone with jack hammers or claws or whatever rock cutting tool they used to build the thing. No fine finish on this one.

There's a nice false summit a few hundred feet below the actual top with some gorgeous camping spots that we had planned on using until a thunderstorm rolled in.

The weather on this trip had been nothing other than the epitome of good weather. Blue skies, sun, mild temperatures. Probably what you'll get if you make it to heaven, but last time I talked to god he said your chances are looking pretty grim.

First damn day of summer and the sky looking one way is blue, smattered with fluffy white clouds, and the other is a black and gray ceiling of about-to-rain.

It looked horrible, but we kept trudging up and up and up, climb all the way to the false summit, pick out camp sites and then we watch a single bolt of lightning strike way off in the middle of the woods somewhere.

If we had actually been at the good campsites (we stopped 100 yards short and didn't see them until later), we would have stayed. Flat, big and protected by trees. About as good as you can get for storm protection up there.

But without said information, we chose option B and dropped down a couple hundred feet. Sure enough when we got to our spot (off the trail to the left and surrounded by trees) it started raining. None of us were completely set up, but we did our best and pulled everything inside our tents before the worst of it started. It really wasn't that bad of a set up and it was actually enjoyable relaxing and listening to the rain.

So there we are, all five of us cozy in our tents, some sleeping, others reading, journaling or some other activity that we turned to because we pitched so early.

I end up having beef jerky, peanuts, cookies and peanut butter M&Ms for dinner while reading about John Muir's adventures in the Sierras.

After a while Slider calls over to me, "Hey Thrust, what's the sky look like?" It had stopped raining, but I figured it was probably still crappy out so I never bothered to look until he asked. Wouldn't you know, back to normal. Clear and blue.

As soon as I told him, Slider started gearing up to make a climb to catch the sunset and figuring that since who the hell knows when I'll be back in Yosemite, I decided to go up too.

I said that the easier side has steps cut into it, and that's true, but once you reach the top of the steps, you climb the slope of some uncut rock up to a flat area, at the end of which you make the final push to the top.

Back before Half Dome had ever been summited, people thought it was literally impossible to climb, and truthfully I could see why. But in 1875, some guy went up there with a bunch of metal poles, cut one hole after another, inserting the metal poles into them and leaning against the one he had just inserted while he cut the hole for the next. And he did that all the way to the top.

I don't know how the guy did it. First of all it was pretty scary walking up even with cables to hold on to. I couldn't imagine sitting there chipping away at some rock leaning against a pole hundreds of feet above the approach below. And that's if you fell straight down. Go to either side and it's thousands of feet to the valley floor. Have fun!

One tip: don't try to climb as fast as you possibly can. The summit is higher than you think and if you're thru hiking, it's the first time you've really used your arms in months. Suffice it to say I was a bit out of breath at the top.

There were maybe five others up there waiting for sunset and two of them were lovely ladies who had apparently just finished posing naked. At least that's what they said we'd find if we checked out their camera, which unfortunately they didn't let us see.

One was American, the other Swedish and they met in France while they were both working in Paris. They talked to each other in mixed French and English with Zsa Zsa Gabor accents. Funny for a minute, very tired after that.

"Dates la fromage?"
"Ya. Ova here, dahling."
"And where are you from, dahling?"
Slider: "Connecticut."
Me: "New Jersey. Where are you guys from?"
"She is from Sweden, ya, but soon she will be Americain."
(Laughter)

And with that, I had had enough of them. You couldn't get a straight answer out of them over anything. Jokes, laughing and crappy accents were all that left their mouths. The one woman's husband served as their interpreter, giving us the old "You see what I have to put up with? Heh heh heh."

But they did offer us some of their dinner - chicken and rice - which made them a little more okay in my book.

I took a modest spoonful, not wanting to take advantage of the guy. Next thing I look over, the guy has his head turned and Slider is shoving a spoonful in his mouth so big that food is falling off.

That's also when I noticed the wine-filled Nalgene that was three quarters empty. So maybe they weren't annoying by nature only, so I guess I can excuse them a bit.

It would have been smart to bring a headlamp for the way down being that we were going up to watch the sunset. Naturally I had nothing and had to rely on my godawful eyesight and Slider's headlamp in front of me which was almost as good as my no headlamp.

Going down - much scarier than going up. Pretty easy to ignore danger when it's behind you, but when it's staring you in the face all the way back to the bottom, that's another story.

It would have been nice to bring some water being that it's a bit of a climb and we were bound to get thirsty. Naturally we brought nothing.

There was a daypack sitting just off the trail the first time we went up, still there when we went down, same going back up the second time and more of the same the second time we came down, evidence enough that it had been abandoned. So like divers to an unexplored shipwreck, we went treasure hunting. Bandaids and a nice unopened bottle of water. I knew there was a reason we didn't bring our own water.

We get back to camp and Gopher asks us if we actually went up there, so we start chatting a bit, maybe a little too loudly.

Trail Magic Over

2008-08-31T18:02:00.000-07:00

(Thursday July 17, 2008)
No sooner did I get a quarter of the way through the Trail Magic post when I decided to go get a late lunch down at Billy Goat's Tavern in the downtown area of Mt. Shasta City. After telling me they were out of my first two choices, I went for the fish tacos.

Right in the middle of the second taco, something in my stomach did a backflip. It went away almost immediately and I just chalked it up to indegestion. Later that night I'd be chalking it up to the work of the Devil.

Two words: liquid fire.
Two more words: lava butt.
And finally two last words: dragonmouth anus.

All night I'd wake up every hour and a half with my intestines very loudly percolating. It felt like jellyfish massing into a Portuguese Man-o-War and heading into my colon to hunt for prey.

The final battle came at 4:30am, after which I was able to sleep until 7:30am and also regained the ability to fully control my bowels and walk at the same time.

Guess I jinxed the good luck.

Friendly Bumblebees

2008-08-31T18:00:00.002-07:00

(Friday July 18, 2008)

I don't know what's with West Coast bumblebees, but they love to hang out on you. One flew on Chickety's hat the other day and was just hanging out. One was sitting on my leg yesterday doing the same thing. And just a minute ago I had to beat two away that insisted on hovering around my head while yelling "You are not my friend! I don't like you." I hit one really hard and he rolled into the street, got up and started flying around again. Weak human strength.

Trail Magic Part III

2008-08-31T18:00:00.001-07:00

The chef was introduced to us later on and was applauded. The meal was that good. And she wasn't even the head chef who was off that day. I know whatever I say can't adequately explain how exquisite this meal was (and when have I ever even used the word exquisite before), but the least I can do is recommend that you try to get there once in your life. Now, you won't get all that for $10, not by a long shot, so for you it won't be the best deal in the country, but it will be one of the best meals you'll ever eat.

Also, actual guests of the resort gave us beer and food for the trail. Bam!

Another 3/4 of a day later (23 miles well before 4:00) we hit Old Station where the Heitmanns live. They're trail angels who've been supporting hikers for years, so this stop was expected, but no less welcome.

Shower and laundry again (if you're counting, that's an unheard of three days in a row), homecooked dinner and breakfast the next morning, Internet, beer - another great stop.

The Heitmanns also are the ones, along with one other guy, who fill water caches for the Hat Creek Rim section just after Old Station, the hottest, driest, most miserable place on the entire PCT.

And wouldn't you know, the next day, just before we went into the hottest, driest, most miserable portion of the Hat Creek Rim, there is a trailhead parking area where we met a family who is trying to get rid of some extra food. At this point I start shaking my head because I just can't believe it, but can't believe it even more when the mom pulls out this huge bag of roast beef slices. A double take would not have been inappropriate. So we feasted on Skittles, chips, grapes and roast beef. They had Coors Light too, but I didn't want to dehydrate myself or drink a can full of piss water.

The next day we hike eight miles to highway 299 and go into the town of Burney. What is reputed as the hardest hitch on the entire trail takes us a combined total of 30 minutes to get one in and out. J.B., another guy hiking with us, catches a ride from a guy who takes him back to his house and oil wrestles with him in a kiddie pool in his basement...just seeing if you were paying attention...let's him use his shower.

After resupplying and feasting in Burney (forgot to mention that a woman drove up to me Neighbor and Chickety and gave us a bottle of water) we hiked a grueling, body destroying eight miles more to Burney Falls State Park where we camped for free and got to sample all the goodies the park store had to offer (which wasn't all that much different from a 7 Eleven, but still, junk food is junk food).

But the store did have beer, which caused everybody en masse to buy a six pack, all of which were fair game, leading to many a drunk hiker and me writing drunken blog posts for all to read.

Two days later we get to a place along the trail called Ash Camp and there's a guy hanging out there who gives us all yogurt and soda. He also, when Slider tells him about the busted sandals he's wearing, gives him the sandals off of his feet to hike in. The sandals off of his feet! Claimed he didn't like them anyway.

The next day we get to I-5 and a few guys are there ahead of us. Slider met a guy who lived in Mt. Shasta City while hiking who offered to come pick us up and drive us into town.

Sure enough, ten minutes later, the guy pulls up, loads eight of us into his van (a VW Vanagon that is incredible shape for its age) and takes us into town. On the way there he asks us where we're staying, we tell him that we're looking for a cheap place in town, he says, "How about a backyard?"

Lets us camp in his backyard, use his shower and bathroom as we need to and (this one I couldn't believe) tosses the keys on the table on his deck and tells us to use it for whatever we need. Two hours later after posting my bail, he tells me drug running was not what he meant.

Well, this one is true anyway. He and his wife own a spa in town and said we could have massages at a discount, so I ended up getting a 30 minute foot massage and a 25 minute leg massage for $46. Ballin'!

Two nights we ended up staying there, and amazingly that's not the end of it. But the other bit of trail magic happened before all of this and is part of another story that I'll tell you later on.

Trail Magic Part II

2008-08-31T17:59:00.002-07:00

They dropped us off at the grocery store in Chester and Neighbor and Chickety are sitting there hanging out underneath some trees in the corner of the parking lot closest to the street.

We pretty much end up plopping down in that spot for five hours or so going in and out of the grocery store as our hunger gets the best of us.

The hotel rates in town are pretty pricey for a small place like Chester, so we're planning on trying to find a spot in town to camp, maybe a park or some woods out of the way. We had our hearts set on this baseball field, but the bathrooms were locked, gates all chained up and signs posted offering rewards for turning in trespassers. Not such a good option.

Not to mention the local cop on duty drove by about three times, very conspicuously checking out us suspicious hikers making sure we weren't dirtying up his nice little mountain community. Once he saw that we had disappeared from our hangout so suddenly, it would have been all the excuse he needed to go on a townwide manhunt and get his picture in the paper.

Who he should have been watching out for was the dirtbag kid that came over wearing a Hooters t-shirt, drinking a large soda and smoking. It must have been his first week smoking because he was coughing the entire time and hocking up some fierce loogies, and doing it considerately in the grass next to us and the creek running behind us. Real upstanding young gentleman.

He overheard us talking about where we were going to stay and offered us spots next to his trailer in the trailer park across the street. Although the trailer wasn't actually there yet, but would be he assured us when his friend came with it later that day.

Naturally his friend shows up trailerless in a white trash mobile. Not that any of us for a second entertained the idea of taking him up on his offer to rob us in the middle of the night.

Either way, I don't know what exactly we were doing there all day. I checked out one hotel and it ended up being $80 per night which would have worked out to $20 per person. Sweet enough deal, but we never attempted to make the reservations even though the place was right across the street.

We chatted up a guy who actually lived at the trailer park where the dirtbag kid claimed to and he told us the place was in the process of being sold and that if we went to the back along the stream that ran next to it, there was plenty of room and no one would bother us.

Seemed like our best option until a guy in a jeep rolls up. He asks us if we need a ride to the trail in the morning (which we do...score) and Neighbor shoots right back at him. "You know of a lawn we could camp on?" Turns out the guy is the manager of the Best Western down the street, which is somehow affiliated with the motel in the adjoining parking lot. Gives us two rooms in the other motel for $60 per night and we get full use of the Best Western's facilities. Basically for us that meant Internet and ransacking the continental breakfast.

And this Best Western was super nice. Way nicer than I expected, and thankfully the aesthetics also carried over to the continental breakfast. Hardboiled eggs, a waffle maker, the sweetest nectar of tropical and non-tropical fruits, pancakes, all kinds of cereal, english muffins, the works. This thing had it all. Presentation surpassed expectations as well. The whole nine yards with linen table cloths. Didn't think we could do any better until...

The Drakesbad Ranch. Not even a full day's hike away. Basically like taking a 3/4 day after a zero. But let me tell you (and I know how I rave about everything on this trail), this place is the best bang for your buck of any place in the country. Yes, I said it. Not the county, but the country in its entirety. I defy you to find something better (well, it also helps that you get this deal only as a PCT hiker, but still).

We got showers (Clairol soap included), laundry (with loaner clothes so that we could wash everything), use of their hot spring pool, dinner and dessert for the grand total of $10.

Now I know you just went "Psshhh" and did a little flip of the hand to show that you don't find that deal remotely exciting. But that's because you didn't get to taste any of the food. Easily (easily!) one of the best meals I have ever had in my life and worthy (definitelyly more so) of a place on the menu of any restaurant you've ever been to.

The meal changes every night, and we had just missed prime rib and duck earlier that week. We came on turkey night. Turkey has pretty much been a miss for me ever since I was a kid. Always dry, fills you up but is never the best thing on the plate. So pardon my low expectations and wishing that we had gotten there on a different day.

Salad comes out. All good, dark greens. None of that iceberg garbage. Lightly covered in homemade raspberry vinagrette with yellow bell pepper sliced thin. Mmm mmm good.

Main course - turkey with sweet mashed potatoes, homemade cranberry sauce and a vegetable. I hate cranberry sauce and you know my thoughts on turkey. Absolutely loved both. Would have eaten seconds and thirds if I could have. The cranberry sauce was nothing like that trash in the can. Light, sweet and quite cranberry-y. As for the turkey - Best. Bird. Ever. Tender enough you could just cut it with your fork and moist like I never imagined it possible for turkey to be.

Next came bowls of homemade chocolate ice cream and raspberry sorbet. Bellisimo! Rich is the best way to describe it.

Not to mention they had an endless conveyor belt of all kinds of breads coming out to us throughout the whole meal. Couldn't tell you what kind, but they were tasty as hell.

Trail Magic

2008-08-31T17:59:00.001-07:00

(Monday July 14, 2008)

Have you ever read an old issue of Outside Magazine in Mt. Shasta City, CA while taking a dump in a toilet? Wait a minute...that's not an interesting bowel movement. But it is a bit of trail magic.

I just knocked on wood (the wood of the halfpipe in the backyard of the guy's house I'm currently staying at) but I'm sure this post will jinx the unbelievable lucky streak that I and the group I'm with have been on for the last ten days.

What we gon' do right here is go back...way back...back into time...

Fourth of July on the PCT was uneventful. Didn't see or hear any fireworks, no rousing renditions of You're a Grand Old Flag around the campfire, nobody pulling out their Uncle Sam costume that they had mailed to them just for the ocassion. It was just a longer-than-normal day because there was absolutely no place to camp.

Brit and Irish camped at probably the best non-campground campsite I've seen on the entire trail. A small square of land with small tree stumps for chairs, right next to a river that was pooling into two or three large lagoons. Nice and flat. Bellisimo!

Unfortunately it was really only big enough for two, so Neighbor, Chickety and I went on ahead and Slider followed a little bit behind us. We got to another spot and there was room for three, but not four, so we kept on trudging.

We only found out there was room for three and not four after Neighor, Chickety and I had started to set up and Slider came down and couldn't make it work. We pack up, keep walking and I realize I left my sandals sitting on the ground a quarter mile back. Diggity damn.

Back and then forth once more, I reach an opening and there's the gang setting up shop in a huge open spot next to a tiny dam. Right next to water, good spots to cook and room enough for the eight of us that eventually were camped there and the other 42 that didn't show up. The ground was hard as my bony b-cheeks, but it worked and our merry band slept sweetly, soundly, patriotically and with killer morning wood (well I guess I can't speak for everyone on that account).

The good thing about hiking 30+ like we did on the 4th was that it put us within three or four miles of town, so in less than two hours we hit the road, and twenty minutes later we walked into Sierra City for a day off.

Before we walked in, we met Gopher and Rapunzel, two people that we hiked with through the Sierras that were on their way out of town. They informed us of some nice trail angels in town that had rented an apartment for the week and were allowing hikers to stay with them.

Sure enough, there's an apartment full of hikers above a restaurant in the middle of town. Free laundry, free showers and actual beds, plus a fridge filled with the leftover goodies of hikers that had stayed the night before.

Slider and Greybeard ate breakfast at the restaurant below the apartment and had their meal paid for by someone who lived in town. That's also where they met the guy who offered to give us a ride out of town to Quincy.

We had to hitch 138.2 trail miles around some forest fires and although the road distance was less, it was still a decent hitch. So this guy piled us into his van and drove us about halfway.

Our group split up a bit here and the second ride we caught was with a real woman of the mountain named Lew. She talked a mile a minute and a blue streak simultaneously, which diverted some power from the sector of her brain that controlled the car as we sped as much as an old Subaru wagon can speed, braked as late as possible and took turns that shoved us hard into the doors. This fazed Lew not and all the while we learned about the natural features of the area, the Native Indians living in the area (her words) and that both of her sons were in a race to get preggers (also her words).

She couldn't take us all the way, but it was closer than we had been so we put out our thumbs once more in front of a grocery store. 15 minutes later and we're in the back of a four door truck with two ranchers, the one riding shotgun drunk as hell. Here are a few of the gems that came out of their mouths on the way to Chester.

In response to the fact that we had hiked 1200 miles to that point - "Musta had some good shit to make it this far."..."Did you at least go to Winnemucca? That's where all the whorehouses are."..."So you guys walk most of the shit? You walk everything?"

After telling them we've seen a bunch of mule riders along the way - "Riding mules is kind of like jacking off. It's good to do, but you don't want to get caught doing it."

Inquiring about our motivation - "What brought this on? Get a wild hare up your ass?"

After Slider asks if Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson are singing on the radio - "That's the best song that ever fuckin' gurgle mumble brrrrr."

The one guy tells us that Chuck Norris has a house in a town nearby (possibly Susanville). The other guy responds - "He's a fuckin' hero! American Ninja!"

Jar o Weed

2008-08-31T17:58:00.001-07:00

(Tuesday July 15, 2008)

Jar o Weed
Is Mt. Shasta City just free of consequences or does this guy want to get arrested?

A hippie rastafarian at the bus stop this morning nonchalantly pulls a large jar of Tostitos salsa out of a tiny hemp back pack filled with weed in plain view of everone, no attempt to hide it.

Then he started calling me Brother and telling me how beautiful the trail is.

Drunk and Hot

2008-08-31T17:57:00.000-07:00

(Thursday July 10, 2008)

I don't know if it's actually possible to be this hot at 10:22pm, but my watch is reading 85 degrees. It certainly feels that way. For the first time on the trail I am pulling the shorts only, no sleeping bag. The Northern California summer has officially arrived.

Drinking at Burney Falls State Park

2008-08-31T17:56:00.002-07:00

(Thursday July 10, 2008)

Drinking at Burney Falls State Park

Guy who is officially inebriated just declared himself "The bomb."

Now I'm Drunk

2008-08-31T17:56:00.001-07:00

(Thursday July 10, 2008)
I know I'm drunk because I saw a bike (a child's bike) and thought about stealing it. More so, I hoped that the kid would catch me and I could ride in circles around him so that he couldn't catch me, but I could keep circling him and laugh like a maniac.

Cranky Day

2008-08-31T17:55:00.001-07:00

(Wednesday July 9, 2008)

Today is a cranky ass day. 30 mile waterless stretch along the Hat Creek Rim through dusty, rocky, shadeless terrain.

The temperature is currently 95 degrees and luckily there is a breeze or we might just kill ourselves. For about five minutes straight we were cursing as loud as possible, yelling our heads off.

The best summation of our current feelings by a fellow thru hiker: "Should be called the fuckin' Pole Smoker Rim."

Chest Plant

2008-08-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

A group of us were hiking to a stop at Blue Lakes Road outside of Echo Lake and we were somewhat split up. Minutes, not miles apart, but it still felt like you were alone.

I was with Slider when we came to a creek. I had plenty of water, but mine had gotten warm so I dumped it and went to get something fresh and cold.

I look down to my left and see a log across and it brings you to a spot where the water is rushing, the best spot to grab water if you're not filtering.

Slider says something that I don't understand and I mumble an unintelligible response and start to cross. The log is wet on the far side, but I see a dry spot big enough for a foothold and use that to spring to the other side.

What Slider had said was "I'm gonna go up here where it's drier."

My foot hits the spot and slips off into the water up to my shin. The other foot follows suit and down I go like Poland in September 1939, quickly, easily and cursing in Polish.

I threw my hands out but there was absolutely nothing to grab on to and I did a straight chest plant onto the log. My chin also bangs into the log and is cut open.

For half a second I'm about to get mad, but then I think, "Yeah, that's gonna help" and just laugh to myself. Thankfully we were spread out so no one saw, but I took some pictures of the log print on my shirt so the public could enjoy later on.

That was my third slip into water of the trip. Way back when I was walking into Agua Dulce I got to a step-across creek, but instead of stepping across, I decided to walk on this super unstable pseudo log. It immediately shifted and in my feet went to this warm, swampy smelling water. Delicious!

Hiking out of Tuolumne Meadows, we got to a pretty big creek that I should have just forded, but not wanting to get my feet wet, I hiked upstream until I got to some rocks that looked hoppable. And they were, until I got to one in the middle that was wet and didn't have much sticking above the water line.

I landed a little too far from the top, my foot slips and in I go up to my knees. My feet, however aren't touching the bottom and I try gripping the rock to climb up, but in this too I failed. Down I go up to my waist, both my phone and camera in my pockets.

Luckily Motorola and Canon make quality products because the camera never stopped working and as soon as the phone dried out, the backlight kicked back in and it works like it never stopped.

The river incidents have died down since we left the Sierras and the water has become less abundant, but Washington is still snow covered right now, so there's a good chance the rivers will be raging and I could get swept away when I get there. If I do, I'll take a picture since I know my camera will still be working.

What Up Hoes?

2008-08-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

(Monday August 25, 2008)
It's been a while, I know. I've been writing, just haven't been sending the messages along.

Nothing much to report. Took a zero today. Hung out in a hotel all day. Drank a milkshake, ate some french toast, ate all the cookies out of my resupply box as I always tend to do (sweet stuff hardly ever makes it out of town), drank some beer, went in the hot tub.

I was pretty bored today actually. I finished my book (The Children of Men) and I and zilch to read. Snoqualmie Pass is a newspaperless society apparently because I couldn't find a one anywhere. Maybe they had one down at the rest stop building at the end of the parking lot along the highway, but I wasn't thinking newspaper until later in the day and there wasn't a chance I was making that 100 yard walk once full-on laziness had set in.

I'm just rambling right now. Bored. Tired. Watching Jon and Kate Plus 8. Just listening to one kid crying is enough to drive me off the edge of a cliff, let alone eight grubby hethens. But then again they're not my kids, so it's easy enough to say "Alright, I'm tired of you bastards. Go away."

I had a dream once that I had a daughter and I remember feeling during that dream and still after I woke up that I wouldn't hesitate for a second to die for her. I wonder if that's what it's like when your kids are born, just feeling that you would do anything for them without question.

I keep wanting a dog. That can be my kid for the time being. I'd probably get super attached to a dog too. Not die-for-it attached, but when it died I'd cry my brains out. I've only ever been attached to one dog before and it's not even mine. I liked to pretend he was though. My little buddy, my puppykins.

You know who I'm not attached to? Fucking Brett Favre. He's only a half step above Roger Clemens in the retirement watch category and that's because Clemens is a lying, drug using bastard. Enough you pile of Mississippi alligator crap. I'm tired of the media fawning over this fool because he has "boyish enthusiasm" and "loves to play the game." Kiss my ass. He's a pill popping interception machine who just up until this past season was playing like Steve DeBerg. I'm tired of this garbage. Brett, I hope your move to the AFC brings you a career-ending lower extremity injury. My uncle has Jets season tickets so maybe I can watch that one in person.

One negative I will say about the trip, I missed the entire Olympics. Didn't see a single thing live and only one track race. Trash.

The one I did see was the women's 4x400m. Comeback victory for the US. Score son. Reminds me of the time when I was at the Penn Relays my sophomore year of high school and watched one of the most exciting races ever.

High school girls 4x400m Championship of America. Montclair, NJ featuring future Olympians the Barber sisters taking on some Jamaican school. We are dominating, the outcome is certainly not in doubt, but the incredibly packed crowd is raucous, everybody on their feet, whole stadium going crazy and then the Montclair third leg shits the bed. Totally blows it, gives up a 5-10 meter lead and the anchors take the batons even.

The Jamaicans are now going nuts, it's a goddamn war on the track, slugging it out stride for stride, everyone around me is yelling at the top of their lungs, I'm cursing at the top of my lungs - "FUCK YOU JAMAICA!!!" And we lost. The next year my friend Juan told our Jamaican friend Craig that story and he punched me in the balls.

Just saw that some sik bastard kidnapped four dogs from a shelter in Washington or Oregon and beat them to death. This is a sick world we're living in with sick people. On a happier note, a mother and baby elephant were reunited at some zoo in Washington. Happy times!

Alright, I've babbled enough. Time for bed. Sharing a room with three other guys. Sharing a bed with a guy from New York who has a rip in the back of his shorts from the top of his ass crack to the bottom. We've told him about the rip, but he doesn't care and continues to think nothing of bending over in them. An awful sight.

Dear Oreginians

2008-08-26T09:42:00.000-07:00

(Monday August 25, 2008)
You dwell in a land that might just as easily be known as Loserdom for the fools that dwell there. Your obsession over the correct pronuncation of your states name makes you look like a five-year-old on a temper tantrum because he got a red bike for his birthday instead of an orange one.

Take for example the conversation I had with a quite attractive older woman from Portland when I was in Trout Lake. I was in the middle of telling her that Oregon was my favorite part of the trip thus far, that Crater Lake was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen in my life, that Ashland and Bend were awesome towns, etc., etc. I'm sitting there telling her how great her state is and how much I would enjoy going back and she's completely deaf to it because I say Ore-gone.

You see dear Oreginians, not everyone pronounces your state name Ore-gin and like myself they say Ore-gone. Now, even though I believe this is a myth and that not a single person from New Jersey has ever pronounced our state name New Joisey, I don't treat people who make that awful joke like infants by giving them an impromptu speech therapy lesson while they're trying to speak.

My Oreginians, you may not realize it, but talking over someone by continually repeating "Ore-gin" like drunken parrots when they say Ore-gone is fucking rude. As most people learn back when they're two, it's not nice to interrupt others when they're talking. You know, that whole common decency thing.

Just as it annoys you to hear Ore-gone, gentle Oreginians, it annoys the absolute crap out of me to know that someone has ceased listening to you and will chant "Ore-gin...Ore-gin...Ore-gin...Ore-gin" until you acknowledge that you aren't using the preferred pronunciation and then make a faux apology or some terrible joke about being from the east coast. So I've come to just ignore your brainwashing actions and continue on with my line of speech as if you guys weren't making fools out of yourselves.

But I don't like this Oreginians. You are enjoyable people except for your one shitty habit and I like meeting and talking with you guys as well as travelling in your beautiful state. Not to mention all of the days during my youth spent caulking and floating my wagon across rivers, hunting the wilderness to extinction and having my family die of typhoid on the Oregon Trail. You've just got to give it a rest.

Nobody wants to hear your bullshit. It's a case of tomato and tomahto. Even though no one says tomahto, who gives a shit if they do? One of your fool citizens tried to get back at me by saying New Hersey when asking where I was from. Aside from revealing that he lacked a sense of humor, he also insulted my character by thinking that I would care about something so insignificant (if he really wanted to get me going, he could try convincing me that the Green Mile was a good movie). During this whole process, he made me start to think that Oreginians are the poor man's missionaries of the world, out to convince a people that don't want to be convinced about something that they can live just fine without.

Just stop. No one cares but you and the fact that you try and try and try just makes you look like buffoons.

Here's a scenario I can picture coming true: It's the year 2091. The world is suffering from the ravages of a terrible epidemic that threatens to end human existence on Earth. A scientist researching natural medicines of the Ore-gone wilderness discovers a cure for the evil disease, the ground roots of a native plant. He proceeds to administer the medicine to a few test subjects who are miraculously cured. He immediately goes to the closest town, a tiny hamlet in central Ore-gone where he gathers a crowd around and begins telling them of his discovery. He asks for their assistance in gathering more of the root. But he begins with the fateful words..."People of Ore-gone!" Then the chant begins.

She Knit on Me

2008-08-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

(Thursday August 21, 2008)

Back when we were at Elk Lake in Oregon, I met a waitress. Real cute, plain, nice butt, long legs - had to go for it.

It wasn't just the looks that did it though. A long time even before that at the Drakesbad Ranch outside of Chester, CA dwelled a Slovenian named Spela. Just being from Slovenia was enough for me with the hot Eastern European accent, but she had the long dark hair, legs that could have wrapped around my head three and a half times and a stomach that resembles the Mojave desert in two distinct ways - hot and flat.

I tell Neighbor that I'm in love with this girl and in good old Neighbor fashion he immediately tells her what I said. On top of that he suggests that I become her husband and get her a green card.

Totally embarassed I pull into my shell like a scared turtle and act like a timid fool. Meanwhile she's serving me food and beer while calling me "my future husband." Flirting or joking? Who knows. The only certifiable fact is that I blew the situation entirely, failing to ask her to have a drink with me at the hot tub later that night.

I can certify that blown chance because Boomer, a guy I've been hiking with for a bit, did just that. Got her going talking about volleyball (guess she was big into that back in the USSR) and now she emails him about once a week and has included bikini pics...

Motherfreaker!

Also she's meeting him in San Diego before she heads back to Europe. Yet another stab in the heart, sledgehammer to the toe, gunshot to the knee.

So I blew it and for the next 600 miles was self flagellating and wearing a hair shirt. So I had to go for it. Couldn't dig myself another hole and wallow in it until Canada.

Made small talk, flirting as she made me a milkshake.

Unfortunately she was really busy so it was hard to get much in edgewise after that. But I got to her at the bar later on.

"Excuse me ma'am, I'd like to get some service."

She comes over. "Yes?"

"Well I came in here to talk to you, but you've been running around ever since."

She had a slightly embarassed look on her face, but we got to chatting for a couple minutes and she said I should come up to the employees cabin when she gets off of work, to meet her at the restaurant at 9:00pm.

It rained the night before we got to Elk Lake so we had our stuff out drying on the deck and a band was coming to set up. I went to leave and go move it, but she caught me at the door.

"Are you leaving?"
"No, I'm just going to move my stuff off the deck. I'll be back."
"Good."

At that moment I thought I was in. I was the intriguing hiker blowing through town and she was the innocent summer help caught off guard by some sweet talking.

Then closing time came.

I get there and try to go in...the door is locked. I knock, someone answers the door and I ask for her. The door answerer smiles, revealing that I had been mentioned a time or two, but when she came to the door I could tell the gossip was not "I hope my prince will come!" More like "What if he shows up?"

"Hey..."
"Hi..."
"So..."
"You could come in here until we're finished cleaning up. Or you could wait outside if you want."

After that promising start and some awkward small talk with her coworkers (a.k.a. I didn't give a shit what they were saying), we left and went up to the cabin.

Two couches in the living room, two guys on one, we plop down on the other and start watching...ugh...Revenge of the Nerds III (known by other titles including: Just Hurry Up and Give Me the Goddamn Paycheck, My Acting Career Wasn't Supposed to Take This Shitty Turn, and Please Bore This Girl to Death So She'll Suggest We Go Upstairs and Disrobe). That Oscar winner was followed up by another trashbag, this time a low budget mafia flick called Mobsters about Lucky Luciano (played by Christian Slater, a logical choice).

Two movies you ask? Well, I decided to stick around, torturing myself through a double cinematic bull whipping, because after she started knitting, I didn't want to leave immediately and look like a total dirtbag.

Knitting. She was knitting a goddamn scarf. A fucking scarf! Knitting a fucking scarf on the couch while Revenge of the Nerds III is on.
Even worse is that because I pretended that I was okay with the situation, I tried making conversation to ease some of the awkwardness, but was completely dumbfounded and could think of nothing. Well, I could think of nothing that wouldn't have belittled and shamed her, so instead I sat in silence watching the movie.

The situation was further compounded by the fact that the way the TV and our couch were oriented, her body blocked most of the screen, so I had to sit sideways and stick my head out just to get a clear view. This also made it look like I was staring her in the face.

A special thanks goes out to the two guys on the other couch. A drowning man off the port bow of your schooner calls for a lifeline and you sit sipping beer and staring like zombies into the distance. Your assistance was much appreciated.

Finally she said she was tired and going up to bed. There are many things I could have said or done here, but continuing the theme of the evening, none were said or done.

I took my leave and walked in the dark up to our cabin, thinking of the wonderful assortment of dirty deeds we could have done together, and trying to figure out where on the surreal scale that situation ranked.

The next morning when I recountred the tale for the rest of the crew, I was given a sage piece of advice: "You should have stuck around, man. That thing was probably a cock sock."

She Devil

2008-08-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

(Wednesday August 20, 2008)
Women are conniving and evil. I was just at the one-level-above-a-convenience-

store-market at White Pass and I overheard two women talking, one of whom had a recent break up.

"He heard me talking on the phone saying that you had a date the other night and he was so mad."

"I don't know why. He's the one that broke up with me."

"Well he was really mad."

"So then it worked?"

Then she cackled witch-like and walked into a back room.

Pure evil.

Moeskitoes

2008-08-26T09:37:00.000-07:00

(Saturday August 4, 2008)
Normally the mosquito population of Oregon is dead around August 1. This year they had a late winter and a wet spring so the hellspawn are just getting started.

We camped at Summit Lake near Shelter Cove Resort (absolutely gorgeous, blue as can be, great for swimming even though we saw a couple dead fish but whatever) and we quickly discovered that The Hatch has begun.

Basically that means if you're anywhere near water when that happens, you're hanging out in rain gear and a headnet, in your tent, or fucked. These bastards (we call them every name under the sun - bastards, little bastards, stupid motherfuckers, pieces of shit, grandmotherless dregs of a bankrupt society - basically combine cursewords and it's an acceptable expletive) swarmed, and by swarmed I mean like a cartoon swarm of bugs chasing Goofy or Donald. Just on me there were 30 or more and buzzing overhead were hundreds more. Killing them does nothing. Like zombies and guidos, there are always more waiting in line.

The only relief comes from your tent, the wind or a resort area of National Forest where the Forest Service sprays chemicals to kill them and keep tourist dollars coming in.

It's not so bad when you're walking. You get the occasional ones that land on your shoulders, hands and face, but you swat and life goes on. Stopping...forget it. Seemingly out of nowhere these soulless creatures appear to probe you without consent. And they never ever stop. They'd suck the oceans dry if they were made of blood.

The worst is they make the trail not enjoyable. They ruined a great campsite yesterday, and then to avoid them today we got up at 4:00am, started hiking by 5:00am and blasted 15+ in five and a half hours with one break to take off jackets because we were getting hot. Makes you forget to look around and enjoy the fact that you're out hiking in the wilderness instead of sitting in a cubicle

Getting Kicked Out of Disney Land

2008-08-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

(Tuesday July 29, 2008)

Today I found out that two people on the trail were once banned from setting foot on Disney Land property, one for three and a half years.

The story came up when we were breaking at Highway 138 just outside the Crater Lake National Park boundary. Boomer asked if anyone would dare him to play dead on the side of the road. I immediately suggest that he do just that, but Flippy talked him out of it. I was thinking of taking up the dare myself when Boomer starts in on the story of the time he was thought dead on Thunder Mountain.

I don't think it does this at Disney World, but apparently for about 45 seconds in Disney Land, the Thunder Mountain ride stops and sits at one part. Boomer decides this is an excellent time for a Çhinese fire drill.

He wriggles out from under the bar, starts running and halfway through he ride takes off. So he's left standing there in the middle of the ride near a service door not knowing what to do. He didn't have to wait long to find out though.

Allegedly a few people have been killed in the past on that ride so when the cart came back minus one, Walt Disney flipped shit. Flood lights came on and a bunch of Disney staff come running back looking for what they're assuming is an injured or possibly dead rider.

"Sir! Sir! Where are you!? Are you okay!? Are you hurt!?"

Upon finding a healthy young man joking around about the situation, Walt Disney again flips shit, and really I guess you can't blame them since they evacuated a quarter of the park and called in the fire department. Just a mite pissed.

Boomer: "They took me away in handcuffs. Disney Land has a jail and it's behind Toon Town."

Again Boomer tries to make light of the situation, but there is a major shortage in the sense of humor department over in Anaheim.

Disney PD: "We're going to call your parents right now. What do you think of that?"

Boomer: "I'm 23. Go ahead. My dad will get a kick out of it."

And out he went, banned for over three years, with the threat of real, not Toon Town jail time if he came back.

I don't know the other guy's name, but whoever he is, he bought a Tigger costume and went around telling kids not to drink or smoke weed.

Walt Disney seems to feel that kids should indulge in such extracurricular activities if they feel the need as they attempted to arrest D.A.R.E. Officer Tigger and stop him from preaching his corrupting gospel.

Tigger uses the kids he's trying to help as decoys, asking the security team if they really want to arrest Tigger in front of all of them.

Knowing they had a conundrum on their hands - putting rent-a-cops in a pickle is what Tiggers do best! - security sort of surrounded him and backed him out of the park without ever laying a hand on him.

And if you think that's wild, check this out. I went to Disney World in middle school and the new Pumas my parents bought for me for the trip got rained on and stained my feet blue.

Getting Kicked Out of the San Diego Zoo

2008-08-26T09:35:00.001-07:00

(Saturday August 2, 2008)
Boomer, the guy who was banned from Disney Land for three years has a knack for this sort of thing. The San Diego Zoo has him filed in a computer somewhere under Banned for Life. But that's what happens when you fight ostriches.

Boomer was part of a behind the scenes tour and decided after a while it was not exciting enough, so he goes wandering.

He makes his way to a loading dock where lo and behold there's an ostrich. Just hanging out, no supervision, standing around looking like an ostrich.

Upon seeing the ostrich, Boomer's first instinct, like all humans upon encountering large, loading-dock-loitering birds, is to give it a hug. Thanks to Boomer, I now know that Ostriches do not like to be hugged. Hugging an ostriche apparently results in a hard peck to the chest.

I also know that when animals bother Boomer, he responds in kind. A bear stole Boomer's food bag in Yosemite so he chased after it and hit it in the face with a trekking pole. Mr. Bear did not like that and bit the pole in half. Luckily it was the pole that broke and not Boomer who lived to tell me some hilarious tales.

Ostrich pecks, Boomer punches. Ostrich bites and draws blood, Boomer punches really hard and knocks ostrich off loading dock at which point he is tackled by zoo security who were following the title fight on camera.

The zoo tried to take him to court, but the judge threw out the case, something about the zoo being negligent.

Boomer also has many overdue library books and the library is threatening to get a collection agency after him, but I figured this story was a bit more interesting.

So Where Are You Sleeping Tonight?

2008-08-26T09:33:00.002-07:00

(Monday July 28, 2008)
So Where Are You Sleeping Tonight?
I am camped illegaly on the Rim of Crater Lake with nine other hikers and I wouldn't trade it for anything else in the world right now. The cliffs on the lake were a beautiful shade of purple a little bit ago; the water looks so calm and flat and huge and deep blue; the sunset went through so many gorgeous phases, highlighting the smoke in the air, then shining right through it making the sky look like a big bruise, then a tropical drink and now just a smudge of pink highlighter. The temperature is nice and chilly, a good breeze is keeping the mosquitos away and keeping my tent nice and fresh. I got a good pitch on my tent so it feels super spacious, like the cage my parents used to lock me in when I was bad.

Actually, I would trade this for one thing, trading up I guess you would call it - Yulia, the eastern European cashier working here at the park climbs in here with me and says simple phrases in her hot accent:

"You like more bread, yes?"
"Exit is on the right."
"Green mean go. Red mean stop. Take me now."
"My horse, his name is Clyde."
"You hike all the way from Mexico?"
"Dirty American hiker."
"Sexy American hiker."

How Does This Happen?

2008-08-26T09:33:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we stopped in at Hyatt Lake Resort for breakfast, and as soon as we finished that, walked to the other side of the resort to a different restaurant and had lunch (we have raging appetites).

At breakfast two older couples sat at the table next to us and we got to talking about this and that and later part ways.

The next day we stop at Fish Lake Resort, again for breakfast, but this time no lunch (I know we're really roughing it out here). Four of us hiked in, three hiked out. The one guy Flippy ended up taking a shower and doing laundry so we just took off.

He's a fast hiker so we expected he'd catch us in a few hours, but it wasn't until after 8:00pm that he rolls into camp, and as always, Flippy has a story.

The two couples from Hyatt Lake spotted Flippy on the road, picked him up and drove him back to the trail, talked with him for a long damn time and then gave him the access code to their gated community so that we can go to their condo and have cocktails with them.

"Access code to their gated comunity?"
"Yes, access code to their gated comunity."

I mean honestly, who's ever heard of anyting like that? Needless to say we'll be stopping in for a few harvey wallbangers.

Do Me a Solid

2008-08-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

Loose stool no more! The old bowels are coming back online after their battle with the forces of Admiral Fish Taco. I didn't think I was even going to make it to a good spot, figured I might just end up having to bury some Joe Boxers in the woods somewhere.

Piles=Energyless hiking.
Logs=Climbing mountains like a lemur.

Today, I climbed with the strength of ten lemurs plus two.

Welcome to Orefreakingon!

2008-08-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Orefreakingon!

Goodbye California, hello Oregon. Thank god that we are out of that damn state. I loved California, was one of the best places I've ever been in my life and if it weren't for the fact that I hold New Jersey in the highest regard above any other place on earth, I'd probably say that California's the best state in the country.

But hiking 1700 miles of a 2650 mile trail and spending over three months in the same state can get more than a little tiresome and make you feel like you're not getting anywhere.

But now we've got Oregon, home of the big trees and Steve Prefonaine. Day 1 in the new state was great. We seem to be getting past the forest fire smoke and had our first real views in three weeks. Just yesterday there were times when we had less than a mile visibility so to be able to see almost to the horizon and walk in clear air is a sweet deal.

Weather was cool, sun was beaming but not overwhelming and a mile before camp somebody left two coolers for PCT hikers filled with soda and beer. Cherry Pepsi and a Budweiser, please!

Today was a good day.

California, kiss these cheeks.

Apologies

2008-07-15T14:23:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the long delay between posts. It's not that I haven't had anything to write. Just the opposite. I fell behind sometime around when we left Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite and have been struggling to catch up ever since.
Some of the longer pieces I've been writing in my journal and will type them up later, but for now I put down a bunch of the ones that I could do pretty quickly.
Tomorrow I should be able to get down a couple more and then hopefully the longer ones will be finished by the time I get to the town stop at mile 1506 (I'm at 1377 right now). After that I should be back to regular updates and whatnot.
As for being so far ahead, the crazy California wildfire season forced us to skip a 138 mile section of the trail, from Sierra City up to Chester. We could have hike a decent portion of that 138 miles, but it would have involved a lot of road walking that nobody wanted to do.
So our plans are for right now to keep on keeping on to Canada and then if the currently closed section is open when we finish, to head back down and complete the unfinished section in September.
That's about it trail-wise. Like I said, I've got a bunch of stories to write up, so keep looking for updates as they'll start picking up again at each town stop.
Goodnight minions.

An Interesting Bowel Movement #3

2008-07-15T14:22:00.004-07:00

Have you ever battled a swarm of mosquitos with an orange bandana while taking a dump in a hole and then one particularly angry swing causes the weight on the hand that's propping you up to shift, causing your left cheek to dip into the mound of filth below? Neither have I. Until June 24, 2008.
Let me just say that this was a top 10 most enjoyable moment of my life. My colon was a rumblin' and the skeeters must have heard it because as soon as my pants came down, it was like handing out free tickets to an all you can eat buffet.

An Interesting Bowel Movement #2

2008-07-15T14:22:00.003-07:00

Have you ever had a deer run by you and then disappear into the woods, making you think that the rock slide tumbling into the canyon ahead of you was just the deer crashing through the brush while taking a dump in a hole below Half Dome in Yosemite National Park? Neither have I. Until June 23rd, 2008.

The $60 Bolivian Hand

2008-07-15T14:22:00.001-07:00

This one was told to me by a guy named (Super or Visor) when we were camping at Joshua Tree Spring North of Walker Pass:
Super went down to Bolivia on a teaching mission to a school for kids living in a poor, remote area of the country. Basically what happens in the rural areas is farmers grow acres and acres of wheat and corn, eat enough to keep them alive and sell the rest for nothing close enough to a living wage. The educational system there is non-existent, so the kids learn nothing and end up stuck in a horrible cycle. The school's curriculum is designed to teach them other types of life skills that will help them earn a living in the cities (where the money is) and hopefully allow them to return to their rural villages, ply their trade there and improve the quality of life for the people living there. About as noble of a goal as you can have I think.
Unfortunately things didn't always work out like that and when Super's girlfriend and now wife came down to visit him, the two of them, along with all of the children, ended up doing road construction the entire time.
Despite being one of the most mineral-rich countries in the world, Bolivia is prevented from exploiting that wealth because it is landlocked. No way to ship the stuff out other than driving it to ports in other countries. Other countries of course take advantage of this situation with things like taxes and tariffs thus preventing Bolivia from expoliting their natural resources. Also don't forget that Bolivia is a South American country, meaning that it is required by law to have a corrupt government. So in other words, all future generations of Bolivians are doomed to lives of squalor. In still other words, they're fucked.
This is why an American teacher, along with his future wife and class of students wasted days of time filling giant pot holes with dirt that upon the first drops of rain were immediately washed out and thus the road returned to its perpetually shitty state. A good use of everyone's time.
After hearing of Bolivian road construction and repair policies, it's no surprise then to hear that the Bolivian justice system varies pretty significantly from town to town. Super was warned about this almost as soon as he got down there. The people running the school told him that if there were any incidents involving someone from one of the nearby towns, to get the hell out of there because the locals just might kill you. Like beat and stomp you until your skull cracks open. Have teams of Bolivian horses trample you until you're ear turns into your asshole. Pelt you with rocks until your bones are shattered into thoudsands of pieces. Tickle your feet until the sound of your laughter reaches the ears of angels in heaven and they flyy down to escort you to the golden gates in a chariot made of clouds and silver. You get the picture.
Naturally, Super gets into a motorcycle accident in town with a guy and nearly cuts his hand off. "Hanging by some skin" was how he described it. Super follows orders and takes off, heads back to the school and lets his bosses know the situation. They all decide to go down together and talk with the man and his family, see how they can rectify the situation.
They walk into the house and the guy is laying on the couch, his hand in a beehive of gauze, basically like putting a band aid on a severed artery.
They ask him if he went to the hospital to get the hand looked at, but unbelievably (actually quite believably when you remember that they're in Bolivia) that was what the doctor ordered. Basically, his hand was lost. The only unresolved matter was compensation. What else can you do at that point but throw some money at the problem?
The family demanded 500 bolivianos (Bolician dollars).
"Excuse me?"
"500 bolivianos."
The grand total of 500 bolivianos converts to...50 American dollars. Well then. Super ponied up 60 bucks and they called it a day.
The whole deal was agreeable to both parties. Super got off paying pocket change and El Càpitan Hook was in the black in more ways than one.
He rented out his taxi to someone in town and was making a profit while sitting at home watching telanovelas.
Any naysayers about the success of the school only have to read this story to see how just how profoundly the teachers are affecting the lives of the Bolivian people.
The only person complaining was the guy's wife. He just doesn't lend a...hand...around the house like he used to.

Happy 4th of July Errybody!

2008-07-15T14:21:00.001-07:00

Funny that if you went back and asked anyone living in 1776 what the significance of the 4th is, they'd probably call you a slag and/or a rake before gathering an angry mob to tar and feather you.
The real holiday should be on either July 2nd, the day that the colonies ratified the document; July 6, the day the Delcaration was officially made public in the Pennsylvania Evening Post; July 8, the first big day of celebration when the Declaration was read aloud before a crowd at the State House in Philadelphia; or August 2nd, the day the majority of delegates signed the Declaration. Nothing apparently happened on the 4th.
So said John Adams: The second of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other from this time forward forever more.
I don't know about you, but I always celebrate the 4th with bells. I clang from dusk til dawn. I give Salvation Army Santas a run for their money.
Anyway, John didn't get his way and it's a damn shame. I'll bet it was those meddling Scotsmen James Wilson and John Witherspoon. Probably Caesar Rodney had something to do with it too. Those Delawarians are rascally.
In the end, I say we all blame Ben Franklin. He was fat, he had gout and he slept all the time while all the heavy shit was going down. Damn you Poor Richard to Hades!

A Note on Trail Names

2008-07-15T14:20:00.000-07:00

You probably have noticed that nobody mentioned in my blog has a real name. It's always Oliver Gash, Cash Taint, Lord Sexington, John E. Depth or something else that makes you wonder what the hell was wrong with these hikers' parents.
Well, as some of you know, when you get on the trail, it's almost inevitable that you'll end up with a trail name. I don't know why or how the tradition started, but it's a religion with the thru hiker community. Sometimes it's too much like a religion with the trail name fanatics trying to dub you something ridiculous and contrived within the first week.
Someone once told me that there was a guy hiking this year that practically wouldn't recognize her until she got a trail name. That guy probably also speaks Klingon and finds Madeline Albright attractive.
I actually ended up getting my trail name from a trail name obsessor, but not before turning down a couple of crap ass ones.
The day I got to Scissors Crossing (way back around mile 77), a group of us were sitting under a highway overpass waiting out the high 90's heat. I pulled out my cell phone, made a few calls and then headed out to get in a few extra miles because there was a big waterless stretch in the morning.
Two days later when I'm in Warner Springs, someone tells me that they heard I had a trail name. It was the first I had heard anything of it, so I asked him what it was, all excited that I did something in the first few days that warranted the bestowing of a trail name.
Verizon.
Someone who had their sense of humor singed off playing with lighter fluid as a child didn't like that I was talking on the phone either too loudly, too close to them or maybe even at all. That one didn't stand a chance. I refused to acknowledge it other than to hold it up as an object of ridicule.
A few days later in Idyllwild, a group of us are standing around a campfire BS-ing (the line "She has just enough of an eating disorder to be sexy" was uttered, at which point we decided that we're the reason women have eating disorders in the first place) when the topic of trail names comes up again.
Someone had suggested Spot because I have a GPS tracker called SPOT that alows my family to see where I am, but 1) a lot of people on the trail have them and 2) it's a shitty name.
Many names are thrown out, all forgetable and contrived. Finally I get half annoyed (though when I say the fateful line, it's not in a mean way), wanting to just end the conversation and let the process happen naturally.
"I'm not going to have a trail name thrust upon me without meaning."
And so Thrust was born.
It took me a long time to get used to the idea of introducing myself as Thrust. It just felt weird and I didn't think I'd ever really take to it, like when I tried to call myself B.J. the Speedboat in third grade.
At first I only halfheartedly told people my trail name, prefacing it with "My real name's Brad." Saying it that way made me realize that some people don't like giving their real name on the trail. It also made me realize that those people have no lives.
But eventually, and to my surprise, I just dumped the preamble and I started calling myself Thrust. I answer to it and that's how everyone out here knows me. It's kind of weird if you think about it and it's got to sound especially weird to non-hikers to hear a group of people calling each other Thrust and Bonesaw and Dildo Saggins.
I'm obviously going to get made fun of by both friends and family about this, which is part of the reason why I haven't really mentioned it. But now that I've passed the halfway point, I figure it's time.
I don't get the question so much anymore, but at first it seemed like everyone wanted to know where the name came from.
One guy tells me, "Oh, Thrust. That must be because you hike so fast."
Another - "Are you a geologist?"
Coming out of Big Bear, I met two women going in and I introduce myself. The one woman hears Trust (the most common mispronunciation) and says it in a real satisfied way, like "Trust...this guy must be called that because he's a nice, wholesome, trustworthy guy." Then I correct her and she lets out an embarrased "OH!" and almost can't bring herself to talk to me anymore, her mind having wandered in a dirty direction.
Before we night hiked out of Agua Dulce, a group of us went and got pizza at a place near the grocery store. I was chatting up one of the female hikers in the group (turns out she's married to the guy sitting next to her) and when she hears my trail name, she tells me, "You don't look like a Thrust."
Now, I'm willing to bet that she didn't mean that I didn't look like a geologist, and she'd never seen me hike before, so she couldn't be saying that I looked like a slow poke. So that only leaves one other option. Once I worked my way through the thought process, I was pretty insulted. It's one thing to be told you're bad in bed after the experience itself, but to be told that you just don't look like you'd be any good...low blow.

A Case of the Giggles

2008-07-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

The day we hiked over Carson Pass and then into Echo Lake, I had the giggles. This happened once before when I kept reciting the whale's vagina scene from Anchorman to myself and couldn't stop laughing for about 20 minutes.
That day it all started when Slider and I came up behind another hiker who very well might have been using the bottom of a dumpster as his tent. You could catch his horrible scent from 25 yards away.
Slider and I try to stop at a lake for lunch everyday to go swimming, so when I brought up our prospects for lunch that day he says, "We should bring that guy with us and throw him in, and his clothes too." And from that moment, everything seemed to bring a burst of laughter out of me. Especially so when I thought about the guy's elbows which were so ashy it looked like he had been erasering chalkboards with them.
It wasn't long before things started getting ridiculous. The height of lunacy for the day - I thought it would be really funny if you worked in a restaurant and when someone ordered a meatball sandwich you give them a horse poop sandwich instead.
I must have laughed on and off for a few hours about that (by the way I was just laughing really hard about that again...still going).
I remember once during my sophomore year of college laughing about an unfunny joke I made up for about 20-30 minutes straight, to the point that I couldn't even tell it to my old roommate Matt Lewis. Everytime I got to the punch line I'd start giggling and chuckling uncontrollably, getting myself under control, letting out a "Whew!" and then get all the way back to the punchline before repeating the cycle.
A small amount of background: I ran with a guy named Dave Masse (rhymes with Lassie) in college and for the most part we called him Masse.
The joke: What do you call Masse after he's had a lot of beans?
Sorry, I'm laughing too hard to write the punchline.

Sunset Before Sleep

2008-06-17T07:51:00.002-07:00

(Sunday June 8, 2008)

Right now I'm laying in my sleeping bag near Bullfrog Lake watching these thin wispy clouds float over the ridgeline and turn from light yellow to an orange-gold.

Eat It Pocahontas

2008-06-17T07:51:00.001-07:00

(Tuesday June 3, 2008)

Nobody else on the porch really understood the horrendousness of it, but this morning I had to witness the most awful track practice in recent memory. Actually, I never got to witness the St. Joe's women's team playing soccer so this would be the worst practice I've ever seen.

There were two guys and one girl actually giving an effort and running. The rest (who would be barred from even signing up for my team if I were the coach and who would all have been summarily beheaded if I witnessed what I'm about to describe) were walking downhill and frying the brain cells of all in earshot with a rousing rendition of the theme song from Pocahontas.

And of course when I hiked out the next day, you can imagine what song was stuck in my head. I tried asking the grinning bobcat why he grinned, but he just hissed at me. And I think we're a bit too early on the trail to hear wolves crying. But I'm fucked if I need to know what a blue corn moon is or when and where it rises. The wind has no colors to paint witth that I'm aware of, but I will say that I have heard the voices of the mountain.

I told you about that time I thought I heard two people having a conversation above me but I climbed up and it was just a windy ridge. Well just today I swear I heard two female voices behind me, so I stop, look around and I'm standing in the middle of an absolutely silent forest. Weird how that works.

I also heard a noise that sounded like someone blowing into an empty bottle, but if the bottle were the size of a barrel. Then I heard an old rotary phone ringing, but that turned out just to be a woodpecker. So at least I'm not fully crazy.

As for the track team, I never saw them again, but hearing the Pocahontas song not only had it repeating in my head but causing me to remember all of the history lessons about Pocahontas' tribe and their relationship with the English settlers which then (ridiculously) caused me to go on a mental tirade about how the Disney movie just perpetuates the myth that Pocahontas was able to save John Smith with some last second heroics.

Ok, beheading is harsh. Maybe 20 lashes each.

Starry Sky

2008-06-17T07:50:00.002-07:00

(Tuesday June 3, 2008)

I got up at 2:53 in the morning to pee and I just ended up staring at the sky for about five minutes (I peed of course).

I pop a boner about everything out here, and I say I've never seen anything like this and that, so I can understand if it starts to sound tired after a while, but I swear this trail just ceases to amaze me.

The desert sky at night was an amazingly beautiful thing, stars as far as the eye can see, full constellations like you can't make out back east.

But this sky was something else. It was like a jeweler meticulously arranged a truck load of diamonds onto the deepest navy blue cloth in creation.

There weren't as many stars visible as in the desert, but they were twinkling so bright and I stared for so long that I started to lose my depth perception and it felt like I was hallucinating.

Crazy thing is Kennedy Meadows is at 6000 feet. In 40 miles I'll be up over 10,000. Can't wait to see what the sky looks like then.

An Interesting Bowel Movement

2008-06-17T07:50:00.001-07:00

Have you ever watched the sun rise from a ridgetop at 6600 feet while taking a dump in a hole? Neither have I. Until today.

Tehachapi Blues

2008-06-17T07:46:00.000-07:00

Friday May 30, 2008)
Tehachapi Blues
"Well, I think I've got my first bout with the trail blahs. I'm attributing it to the weather. Overcast, damp...and it's giving me an overwhelming sense of 'Eh.'

I'm in Tehachapi and I just can't figure out what to do with myself. I'm just wandering around town, nothing's really open yet because it's Sunday morning, so I'm trying to figure out what to do and can't.

It would be a bit easier if the sun was out because I sould hang out in a park near the middle of town, but like I said it's damp and overcast.

Part of the reason for my semi-blues is I can't even really go back to my room. I can, but I don't really even want to. This might be the dumpiest motel I've ever paid to stay in, but when you're looking for cheap and you pay for cheap, you get cheap. I felt skeevy even laying in the bed, so I kind of want to get out of there soon as I can."

So that's how I started a semi-depresed post when I got into Tehachapi (pronouned T'hatch-a-pee) last Saturday. And that was the last pocketmail I wrote until today.
Let me tell you, I was suffering some serious blahs. Couldn't figure out what to do with myself, wandering listlessly around town, being completely indecisive.

I really do attribute it to the weather which messed with my plans to leave town Sunday afternoon. It was unusual weather for the town, and despite being able to infer that just from witnessing rain, hail and snow in the desert, I must have heard that from about half the residents in town and even read about how the "Weird Weather Continues" on the front page of the local paper.

I wouldn't exactly call all that weird, but when you get 350 days of sunshine per year, a weather front like that out of nowhere is something to talk about.

And you're probably wondering (and if you're not, I'm using the about-to-be-posed question as a way to move this piece forward anyway) "Why didn't you just leave anyway if those were your plans?"

Well, if I were on the Appalachian Trail, a situation like that would be the rule rather than the exception, but when I say the town gets 350 days of sunshine a year, that's no lie. The whole damn area I've been hiking through for the last month is a desert and it has been nothing but sunshine the entire time. I have never seen such beautiful weather before in my life, and this is a cool year too so other than that one day, I haven't been oven roasted as is the typical experience. Really, I could see why so many people end up moving out here.

So as you can see, I've gotten a little spoiled. Wait a minute, you're telling me that I woke up this morning and the sky is not completely clear and blue and I have to wear a snow hat for the first hour of hiking? This is appalling, disgusting, preposterous.

But it wasn't just cloudy and cool. The trail around those parts was up between 5000-7000 feet, prime cloud territory, so it was also damp walking through all that. So pardone moi if I didn't want to be wet for the next three days in addition to cold.

It really wasn't supposed to be that way though.

The day I hiked to that RV park in 103 degree heat was actually the day before a cool front rolled into the area. The next day when I got to Agua Dulce, it was hot, but definitely cooler in the low to mid-90's.

Typically people night hike out of Agua Dulce to keep out of the daytime heat and put themselves halfway to Casa de Luna, the next trail angel's house. So I did my first (and probably going to be only) night hike for ten miles or so out of Agua Dulce, but it ended up being needless. It just never got that hot. And that was the start of the "weird" weather.

I get to Casa de Luna and the wind is gusting ridiculously. I know I've said the wind has been bad a few times before, but the news confirmed that gusts in the area were as high as 65 mph. That's what fueled the fire that started on a mountain 10 minutes from the house.

The house has an awesome manzanita (look it up) forest in the backyard where a lot of people camp and at night it seems enchanted (or haunted if you're walking back there alone). In the middle of setting up my tent I hear a siren go off that sounds suspiciously like the firehouse siren back home. But since that thing seems to go off for no reason, I figured they served the same useless purpose on the other side of the country. I get my tent fully set up, hands on hips and a manly nod at a job well done, when someone comes back to tell me to pack it up, that there's a chance we might have to evacuate.

"Evacuate?"

"Yeah, evacuate."

Sigh.

Bag repacked, I head inside to watch the news and check on fire updates. Nothing new at the top of the hour which then transitions to talking about record oil prices and American Airlines charging $15 for a passenger's first checked bag.

The combination of these two bits of terrible news lead one hiker to wax philosophical: "This country sucks. It's going down the tubes."

I know the high price of oil and airline baggage fees can pound the old wallet while hiking for 5 months, but something tells me that people had it a bit worse during the Great Depression.
Right about then I start thinking that evacuation sounds kind of cool, that it might make for a good story, that short of death and bear attack, it could turn out to be one of the most badass hikes of all time.

Fire! Destruction! Getting places without having to walk!

Just then Casa de Luna matriarch Mrs. Anderson dials one of her neighbors warning them about the fire and the possibility of evacuation, telling her to take care and be safe.

Real nice, Brad. "Hey everybody, I got evacuated out of this town because of a fire and all the people there lost their homes and worldly possesions but I didn't have to hike a few miles and I got to tell you all about it. Isn't that great?"

Later during the news, and after a commercial for some new show about the search for America's best dog (maybe this country is going down the tubes) some pretty cool footage comes on showing bulldozers plowing firebreaks around the fire and helicopters dousing the flames. The fire is officially a non-threat.

Casa de Luna is a little...less kept up than Hiker Heaven in Agua Dulce, so not wanting to have to deal with a tent in case of a flare up, I plopped down on one of the two couches in the backyard. Best sleep I've had on the trail bar none, even with the leaves and dirt in the cracks and cushions.

I "slept in" until 6:30am, only woke up because I heard someone walking by, but I actually felt refreshed for once. Very nice.

I planned to just do what I had been doing (25-28 miles per day) to get to Tehachapi in three days, camp Saturday night, hitch in Sunday, hit the post office Monday morning and get my ass out of there Monday afternoon.

(And here comes the big) But I got to talking with Samurai and she reminded me that the post office would be closed Monday for Memorial Day...shit. Now the government was f-ing with my timetable.

So immediately I decide that Saturday morning is the goal. If I do 30+ two days in a row, that leaves around 15 to do Saturday morning which I figure I can knock out in just over three hours. Done.

It was good for me because I like to have a goal. Gives me something to drive for and keeps my mind off of the fact that even though I'd been on the trail for almost a month at that point, I still had over 2000 miles and four months to go.

It also served the dual purpose of getting me away from the herd that was building behind me. There were about 20-25 people at Casa de Luna the night I was there and the late Agua Dulce arrivals said there were 60 people at Hiker Heaven when they left. I was not interested in that at all. Even the crowd 1/3 that size at Casa de Luna was a bit too much for me, so I became even more committed to the 2 1/2 day plan.

A group of early-to-rise hikers had assembled in the driveway waiting for someone to wake up and give us a ride to the trailhead, but after a bit it was pretty clear that only hikers' sleep rhythms got us up at that hour and so we started looking for the car keys.

Not that we were going to steal the car or anything. They let you borrow their car for trail-related stuff. I swear some of this stuff is unimaginable coming from the east coast. You should have seen the amount of beer and food that they brought in for us to eat free-of-charge (of course you make a donation). And they do this day in and day out for the two month window that thru-hikers come through their town. Unreal.

Eventually after finding two sets of keys, neither of which were for the minivan, we just hiked to the main road and hitched up to the trail head.

After a couple of quick pictures with Samurai and Sundown it was off to the races, barely stopping until a long annoying climb to the Bear something campground where I planned on eatig dinner. Of course I missed the trail to the campground, so I ended up eating in the middle of a jeep road.

After dinner hiking was surprisingly relaxed, mostly due to the fact that the trail was very flat and wandered through oak groves with pink and yellow flowers everywhere. The most beautiful and enjoyable scenery that I had seen in quite some time, and as such, I just walked casually until I found a nice flat spot sometime around 7:00pm and plopped down for the night.
In the morning I would find myself adrift in a sea of clouds.

I went to sleep windless, woke up to a pretty strong breeze blowing to the North and on that breeze was carried an endless amount of cloud cover which was getting everything I owned nice and damp.

It wouldn't have been much of an issue but since the weather was so nice the night before I hung everything out to dry in a tree. Retrospectively, I hung out everything to get damp. Damp is much better than wet because it's easy to get used to and eventually your body heat dries the stuff out. But it's still gross to put on a damp shirt and pants in the morning.

I didn't even eat breakfast, just threw everything in my bag and started hiking as the path lost a few thousand feet of elevation in the first couple of miles that day, so I'd be out of the clouds soon enough.

And soon enough it started raining. You've seen the picture of the lovely rainbow that resulted from said rain, but to give that picture to you, I had to suffer through an awful sun shower in mid-70 degree weather. It actually wasn't that bad at all. The rain stopped after a little bit and I was dry minutes later. No biggie.

There's a pit stop called Hiker Town about 40 miles past the Andersons and I reached it about 10:30am or so. A PCT hiker used to own it and from what I can gather the guy committed suicide. Now a guy named Richard Scaggs lives there. He did something in Hollywood (I've heard stunts) and sure enough he was wearing an Oscars sweatshirt when got there. Half the property is old movie sets, like old western store fronts, but weirdly enough Mr. Scaggs wasn't the one that set it up that way. I guess the old owner was a movie fan or thought he could attract film crews there. Who knows.

Either way it's an interesting sight. Dogs and chickens running around, old movie sets and a trailer in the back for hikers to use. Normally people will hang there to wait out the heat and night hike to the mountains, but as you know, the cold front and blah blah blah.
So I stopped in, used the facilities (aka took a dump), refilled on water, watched some Price is Right (Drew Carey stinks) and headed out.

A paper at Hiker Town listed the weather forecast for the week and it said there was a 20% chance of rain that day. That prediction had already been bumped to 100% earlier that morning, but from the looks of things, the sky looked like it was ready for another go.

Next year the trail is being diverted directly to Tehachapi, adding on about 50 miles extra in total, but because this isn't 2009, the current route heads out over a wide open plain following the path of the Los Angeles aqueduct (yes the dried up one you see in movies, but out here it's actually filled with water from the Sierras). This means that you come out of the mountains, walk through a field, down a street passed what looks like an abandoned school and east for a few miles along the water. Then you turn and head directly North for five miles, walking down a dirt road next to a giant pipe holding water for Angelenos. For being such an important resource, the thing is ridiculously unprotected. You can walk right on it and if you sat there banging away all day with a sledgehammer, nobody'd be the wiser.

The funny thing is these dirt roads are part of some town, Antelope Valley I think is the name. Other than a highway, there isn't a single paved road there. It's kind of a weird sight seeing old Civics and Jettas barreling down dusty roads with pickups, but I guess that's just how they roll in the California desert.

I shouldn't say that there is only one dirt road actually. The pipe is buried underground for a long stretch, about nine miles, and it's covered over by concrete so cars just drive right on top of it. So I digress.

Either way, thank God for the trail following the aqueduct because the weather decided to take a turn for the worse.

The sky was menacing enough that I could tell it was probably going to rain when I was at Hiker Town. So imagine my anxiety as I'm walking right into what is going to be a real shit storm.
I'm walking under mostly sunny skies and 100 yards ahead of me are dark dark gray storm clouds, and I keep walking and the clouds stay ahead, keep walking and the storm moves right along in front of me. So I brighten up a bit, imagining myself walking 100 yards behind a pouring desert thundersorm in the sun.

The feeling doesn't last long because off in the distance you can see the clouds being held up by the mountain range, bunching up into something unfriendly. That made me none too happy as the mountan range was exactly where I was headed that night.

And then a loud crack of thunder echoed across the valley.

Second only to being lost in a snow storm in the high Sierras on my list of PCT fears is getting caught in the open desert in a thunderstorm. Washed away in a flash flood or struck by lightning is not my idea of fun.

Like the first time a rattlesnake buzzed at me from under a bush, my heart lept out of my chest and I froze dead in my tracks. I assessed my options, none of which were particularly good:
1) Set up my tent and wait it out.
2) Walk down one of the mile long driveways to one of the ranch houses and see if they'd allow me to hole up in a shed or back room.
3) Make the random abandoned outhouse 25 yards up and to my left my permanent residence.
4) Take my chances and keep going.

Option number 4 it is.

As much as I would have loved being sheltered in an old cramped toilet, continuing on wasn't as dumb as it sounds. As I said earlier, the aqueduct cuts East and is buried underground, giving cars a paved path to drive on. So as the storm headed North into the mountains, I was on some roundabout ass way East, then back West, then finally back North, hopefully to arrive after the storm finished its business.

Normally I hate how the PCT has to negotiate a path around private lands (hence the roundabout ass way), but now that it was saving me from death and/or being soaked, I was thanking the ranchers for refusing us an easement.

The funny thing about ranchers is that they have a bad reputation, that they'll run you off their property at gun point, that they're super hostile to trespassers, and so being out in the middle of ranch country, I wasn't too happy about my prospects if I was to get in some kind of trouble. Miles later, I think I'm nowhere near civilization and getting that periodic feeling of trail vertigo (I just kept walking) when I see a huge truck coming down the road followed by a small truck. There's no room for me to walk and them to drive so I get to the side and let them pass.
The big truck stops, tinted window rolls down and behind it is a guy with big sunglasses and a bigger cowboy hat.

"You a PCT hiker?"

"Yeah, and I was actually wondering if I'm going the right way. You go so long without seeing anyone and you start to doubt yourself."

He grabs the CB radio and presses the button, mumbling something indistinct. He puts the mouthpiece down.

"Yep. You're on the right path. Can we refresh you with some water?"

"No thanks. I've got plenty."

"Well, if you need anything, this is our ranch right here."

The random sign I had been wondering about now made sense.

"Thanks. I really appreciate it."

And with that, I don't think ranchers are as bad as trail talk might have you think.

It actually recharged me a bit to have a conversation and know that you're going the right way, even if you already knew you were. So I took off, not bat-out-of-hell-like, but quick enough.
After crossing near what someone told me is some secret government base (apparently it's blacked out on Google Earth if you want to check), off ahead is my first worst fear. Snow covered mountains. Ugh.

And I know (I fucking know it!) that the path is headed up there. I have to climb up over 6000 feet and the only mountains are the bastards in front of me. Of course the trail looks like it's going up the mountains, then cuts across the plain so it looks like you're not, then it trends towards two ridges, one with snow one without and you can't tell which one it's going for, but you know (you fucking know it!) that it's going to veer right and head towards the snow.
And of course it does.

I met a guy named Argentina and we hiked together to Tylerhorse Canyon where a guy named Crosscut had been hunkered down in the storm that I was able to walk around. Rain and hail, he says.

Before we set up our tents, Crosscut warned us about rocks that had been falling down the mountain all day. He points to an area covered in decent sized rocks where my pack is waiting to be emptied. I decide to move a bit farther away.

The temperature was already dropping when I got to Tylerhorse Canyon which is why I didn't continue on another three miles to Gambler Spring Canyon (that and I was tired as hell) but it just plummeted within a half hour of getting there.

I pulled everything inside my tent, cleaned up as best I could and made myself a sweet ass package of dehydrated hamburgers and mashed potatoes. I didn't even bother cleaning up. Just left the dirty stuff next to me, zipped up my sleeping bag and slept a cold ass sleep.

Originally my plan was to get up at 4:30 to ensure that I would get to the post office in Tehachapi before it closed for the holiday weekend, but as soon as I lay down, I knew that wasn't happening. And when I woke up at 4:30am to go to the bathroom and it was in the 30's and the moon was high in the sky, I definitely knew that wasn't happening.

Still I didn't sleep in that much. I got up around 6:00am, ate a fast breakfast and shoved everything in my bag as quick as I could, including my soaking wet tent. I don't know how it got wet, but it was like I dunked it in the stream right near camp. But I couldn't worry about that. I had a post office to get to.

I had actually noticed that my ankle was bothering me in the middle of the night, sleeping with my foot bent at some strange angle, but man when I started going did I notice it then. Uphills are fine but pounding down any decline made me cringe.

But what could I do? I had a schedule to keep dammit and it was Tehachapi come hell or high water. (I think I've said this before, but they told us at the Kickoff that making hell or high water trail decisions is a bad idea. And you know what I have to say to that? I'll make hell or high water trail decisions whenever I goddamn well please and thank you ma'am).

Of course my first worst fear came true. Snow on the mountain and me hiking alone. I was hoping and praying that we would somehow avoid it, but as soon as I got up around 6000 feet, there it was. My hopes and prayers were sort of answered because the snow was pretty light and even though they're prohibited from doing so, some off road vehicles had driven on the PCT not long before and cut a nice path for me.

The trail was also surprisingly well marked so even without the illegal tire track guide, I think I would have done fine.

In the end I'd rather have had no off road vehicles on the trail because after sloshing through a few miles of wet snow (did you know snow makes your feet cold?) the trail dropped in elevation enough that the snow disappeared and then all there was was destroyed trail and misleading paths that could get somebody lost.

A guy named Crosscut who left the trail in Tehachapi to take a job as a California park ranger actually saw some of the guys and stopped them, berated and lectured them and then let them go. Funny enough Crosscut was not at the time a park ranger even though he said he was and used the somewhat flimsy excuse that he forgot his ticket book or he would have written them up right then and there. Quick thinking hiker with a little gusto and balls - 1; Trail-ruining dirt bikers - 0.

Once I got to the second and final wind farm of my tenure on the PCT (which made for much better pictures this time around and was thankfully much less windy) my ankle started hurting even more which made avoiding the mounds upon piles upon loads of cow and horse shit that all of a sudden decided to appear on the trail slightly more difficult. You wouldn't believe the size of these piles - it was like someone threw a quarter in a cows mouth, pulled its tail and hit the jackpot.

When I reached the trail bottom there was a sign that said trail maintenance for that section was sponsored by a horse riding club. Go figure. Maybe they ride cows too.

I had hitch hiked two times before on the trail, once with a woman named Janice, another with a guy named Dave, but they were either in or very close to towns which were hiker friendly. Getting to Tehachapi is a nine mile hike from a California back road which I've come to realize are basically like highways because the roads are so long and open, and Tehachapi, while familiar with PCT hikers, is not a trail town in the same sense that Idyllwild or Agua Dulce are, so there aren't people jumpng at the chance to hook you up with a ride.

I hit the road just after 12:00pm (which meant I knocked out 17 miles in six and a half hours...score!) which left me two hours to make it to the post office before it closed for two days. So I set my pack up so I would look conspicuously like a hiker in need and stuck out my thumb. An hour later my thumb was still hanging in the breeze.

Three frustrating things from my longish hitch attempt:
1) People who drive by with an empty car, look at you and shrug as if to say, "Wish I could help." At least you know where you stand with people who hit the gas when they see you. The shruggers are just trying to absolve themselves over the guilt of not offering you help even though they could have.

2) The assholes that wave but keep driving. I'm not sitting here waving and sticking my thumb out as part of a side of the highway happiness boosting project. I need a damn ride so stop waving and pull over!

3) This one was more of a unique occurence, but no less frustrating. A cop, who was doing his best to protect and serve the public by using the area in which I was hitching as a place to meet his ticket quota, was causing every car heading in the direction of Tehachapi to slow down, making me think I finally had a ride, only to have them speed back up one they passed him, thus dashing my hopes and dreams on the rocky shores of despair.

A woman in one of the cars that the cop pulled over gave me the shrug, but it was an acceptable one because she saw me trying to hitch for ten minutes or so and I think would have given me a ride, but she was going the other way.

After a phantom pull over (it was somebody who either lived or knew the people at the ranch across the street, but of course I put on my pack, ran over to the driveway and the guy was gone), finally a guy named Jim in a red Jeep stopped and picked me up. The guy went way out of his way to take me to the post office (which for some reason is located about a mile and a half to two miles from the center of Tehachapi. I offered him my measly remaining $3 but he told me to keep it and buy some food. A good guy all around.

Just a quick word of caution. Not all fields are fun to walk through even though they look pretty. I thought I'd cut across this field of shin-high wavy grass and of course its seeds stick to your clothes and give you painful needle pokes.

After a quick lunch at the Apple Shed (ok food, absolutely amazing homemade fudge), I decided to check into a cheap motel to save some money. $45 later and I have the keys to my very own rat hole.

What a dump. The pictures are online, but I'm not sure they do it justice. The place looked like it hadn't been kept up since they first opened it. Rusty window frames, cigarette burns in the comforter, crusty shower head. I wouldn't even walk around in my bare feet and honestly didn't really even want to sleep in the bed, but the sheets looked nice and clean (guarantee they would have miserably failed one of those evening news special reports where the guy goes around scanning hotel rooms with a UV light).

And that (after six prior entries) is where my Tehachapi Blues began. One of the nicest things about going into a town is getting a room where you can get a shower and relax, neither of which I really felt like doing in the Crackhouse Hotel.

The other nice thing (and my absolute favorite) is town food. Trail food is not bad and at the end of a long day can be absolutely delicious, but it's nothing like a restaurant menu with its tons of options and the mouth watering wait until the waitress comes to take your order. Tehachapi unfortunately doesn't have the best food. At best I tasted a B- and at worst a D. I sorely underestimated how disappointed I would be at not being able to get a really good meal.

Another benefit of going to Tehachapi (and one of the reasons I chose to go into the town) was that they had a movie theater. So of all things, I had been waiting to go see the new Indiana Jones and in the trail register before I got off the trail, I wrote that I couldn't wait to see it.
I bought my favorite movie snacks (Cherry Coke and a bag of Reeses Pieces...ok so I was able to get something good), sat down, had a little chat with a woman who was upset that we were part of the overflow who was put in the smaller theater, and then, the lights dimmed.

Two hours later I walked back to my room...you guessed it...disappointed. I mean come on. An alien skull that has the power to give the possesor all of the knowledge in the world? That's the best they could come up with? At least they could have gone with a less ridiculous mythical object like Excalibur or a crystal ball that predicts the future. Aliens? Please.
It was not the ideal tone to set in order to get me excited to be back on the trail. And the next day, when it was cold and raining, my mood sank even further.

I check out of my room, but I don't want to leave town. Even the Buttcheek Villa was better than wet camping. So I wandered. Went to different stores, got blah food even though I wasn't hungry and then when the weather still hadn't cleared up, decided to go to the movies to see the new Chronicles of Narnia and leave afterwards.

I snuck a milkshake in from a restaurant in town that was supposed to have some of the best on the trail. Not surprisingly it was just okay. But I should have known that from the night before when I got a burger with a slice of pineapple and teriyaki sauce on top. That part of the burger was actually tasty. What wasn't, and what the girl at the counter failed to tell me was that they also put mayo and tomato on the burger as well, which pretty much defeated the purpose of the teriyaki and pineapple slice.

But while waiting in line for my burger, two things happened:
1) They had Charlie Chaplin films playing on a flat screen TV on the wall and they were surprisingly funny. I thought they'd be horrendously unfunny like the Three Stooges, but I chuckled numerous times.

2) I started chatting with a guy who lives in the area and we got to talking about the PCT. Turns out he works for NASA and offered to give me a ride to the trail if I needed one.
So who sits down two seats over from me in Chronicles of Narnia, but the NASA guy. Kind of strange a 24 year old and a guy in his mid-30's seeing a movie, each alone, in a theater filled to the brim with children and their parents.

I ended up falling asleep part way through, just out of tiredness, not because I was bored with the movie. But even still, it wasn't as good as I thought and when I left for my supposed departure for the trail, it was raining and even colder.

NASA guy saw the look on my face and asked if I was going to head out to which I told him no way. Thankfully he drove me to the Best Western down the road where I knew some hikers were holed up, and the front desk lady let me hang around in the lobby until I was able to spot someone.

Argentina (who I camped with at Tylerhorse Canyon) and two Canadians, Angela and Colin, were sharing a room and were gracious enough to let me crash on the floor for $20.
This boosted my spirits immensely as I now had a clean room and bathroom to use and didn't have to sleep in the cold and wet. But for some reason I still couldn't shake my feelings of sadness.

I think it still had everything to do with not having a set plan, because the next day the weather was still shitty and I went through another couple of hours of back and forth about staying until Colin and Angela decided that they wanted to stay another night, which made my decision for me. I was even somewhat productive that day, going to K-Mart for new socks and finally making the decision to start wearing underwear (extreme chafing will do that). We watched Return of the Jedi and Ace Ventura (which I hadn't seen in forever) and I was giggling like a schoolgirl the entire time. I made my third trip to the movies and saw Iron Man (loved it - finally saw a good one). The Best Western even had a continental breakfast which was my first opportunity to have cereal on the entire trail, one of which I took full advantage and had like six bowls, selfishly using up all the milk and causing Angela to pour herself a cup of coffee then dump it out because she had no milk to put in it!

And yet I still, after all that, was in a fog of blah.

Getting back on the trail didn't really help either, which I thought it would. My pack felt extra heavy after two and a half days off and I kept slipping on these non-existent descents, falling outright once and cutting my knee. It was just completely frustrating.

I had also decided to bypass my next town stop (Lake Isabella) because I had been in Tehachapi for much longer than expected, and that was making me upset because I didn't want to go the six or seven days to Kennedy Meadows without a town stop, and by skipping Lake Isabella, I'd be missing out on Nelda's Diner which supposedly had (hadn't I heard something like this before?) a killer selection of milkshakes.

So I'm just out there hiking alternately sad and angry and Lake Isabella is getting closer and closer. I don't know what I want to do, but I just want to not feel this way on what is supposed to be one of the best times of my life. I really even felt guilty just for feeling sad. "You're out on this trail doing something that few people get the chance to. You're not allowed to feel sad."

And then my ankle flares up again. Of course while in Tehachapi I did zero rehab on my ankle, so surprise surprise two days later I'm limping along. This was probably the low point of the trail thus far. I didn't know how far I was going to be able to hike each day because my ankle would start killing me at the 20 mile mark, and then it would throb at night. Miserable.

So I'm hiking up to a peak near 7000 feet and I meet a guy who asks me if I'm going to Lake Isabella. I tell him that I'm not and he says that he is. Internally I get pissed because I'm jealous and I hike away in a huff. But the conversation was the spark I needed to get out of my trail funk.

Now I'm openly debating whether to go in or not. I just stayed in Tehachapi for two and a half days, but I really want to go to Lake Isabella. Kennedy Meadows is just a couple of days from Lake Isabella so why stop? But I really want that damn milkshake.

So I keep climbing and I meet up with two people and we stop together to take a breather. I tell them I'm debating whether or not to go into town and they tell me that they're going in because even though they just took five days off to rest the woman's foot, it was acting up and they wanted to give it another break.

"Five days!?" I thought to myself. And here I was worrying over two and a half.

And just then I remembered the moment during one of my training hikes when I didn't want to stop to get out my water bottle but finally had to because I just couldn't grab it, and how absolutely angering it was. But also realizing that if I needed to stop to get the water bottle, why not? What was stopping me? If I wanted the water, why not just stop and grab it?
If my ankle hurt and I wanted to go into town and take a day, even though I just had two and a half off, why not? What was stopping me?

And that was it. Almost instantaneously my mood lifted and I felt happy again. I had the prospect of a room, a shower and a delicious milkshake in front of me again, and it was only a day away.

And like that, all was right in the world once more. The next morning a trail angel was parked at the campground near the road into Lake Isabella so I got to have cinnamon buns, cookies, fruit and soda at 9:00am. I also met two of the nicest and funniest people on the trail so far who were also going into Lake Isabella, so we caught a hitch in together with a Canadian who was on a post-grad school road trip through the U.S. and Canada. He talked our ear off for the entire ride and seemed to know more about American politics than we did. He also told us about some controversy over Canada's sovereignty over the Northwest Passage and how they were ptting battleships up there to assert control. Meanwhile I'm sitting there thinking, "Canada has a navy?"

I smiled to myself and stared out the window, listening to the guy go on about how much he loves Obama, throwing in my two cents about life here and there, and watching the cows graze in the deep green grasses at the foot of the desert mountains.

It was good to be back.

Oh, and the milkshake was the shit.

That Note Must Be Old

2008-05-22T06:30:00.001-07:00

(Friday May 16, 2008)

I just climbed about 3000 feet up to the summit of Mt. Baden-Powell. I saw a sign earlier today that said the trail was snow covered and really windy. I thought to myself, "Please. That note is probably weeks old." It wasn't.

You couldn't even find the trail and eight of us just walked straight up the side of the mountain until we hit the trail again. I fell once and slid down five feet. That was cold.

About 20 minutes ago I was hating life, but now my feet are dry so I'm good again.

Back to the trails boys and girls.

It's a Dry Heat

2008-05-22T06:29:00.002-07:00

(Monday May 19, 2008)

I think anytime anyone ever mentions Arizona or New Mexico, the phrase "But it's a dry heat" comes up. And yet I think you'd be hard pressed to find 10 houses without air conditioning in either state. Throw in the desert region of Southern California (where you can currently find yours truly) and you wouldn't stand a chance winning that bet.

Yesterday morning I hiked a ridiculous 17.5 miles in 5 hours and 45 minutes. Somehow I still think I skipped a portion of the trail because people started out before me that I somehow passed but never saw. Either way, I covered some big ground early on.

I stopped for lunch at 11:45am and already it was 90 degrees. Normally I just hang around for an hour or so, but the temperature kept climbing, 91, 92, 93 before topping off at 94.6. A little bit after that I checked the temperature and it "dropped" to 94.4 so I decide to head out figuring that even though it was still hot as a fat man's crack on a humid July afternoon, the worst was over and it was starting to cool down, albeit slowly.

So after my longest mid-day break of the trip (3 hours), I head out with a guy named Sweetfish toward the Robin's Nest RV Park eight miles away.

Little did I consider the 2000 foot elevation drop into an entirely shadeless area as a result of a complete burn out a few years ago.

Now, it's not that I didn't know this part was coming up, I just figured it wouldn't be that bad. As I hit the bottom of Mattox Canyon with 4 miles left until the RV Park and saw the trail winding up hundreds of feet to the ridgeline and then checked my watch once (101), twice (102) three times a lady (103) I uttered my favorite on-trail-and-under-duress phrase - "Fuck the PCT."

At one point I had to just stop in an oasis of shade and sit down because it was so ungodly hot. I had plenty of water, but it aside from hydrating me (as if that's such a horrible thing) it was really warm and was far from refreshing. Just good enough to keep me alive.

Originally I was planning on night hiking to the next town, but when we hit the RV Park, I was done. And by done I mean Well Done. I can't ever remember being that hot before. I was so hot my breath was making me sweat. The air out of my nostrils was dragon-esque.

I stripped down to just shorts and dunked my head under a cold faucet. tided me over for 45 minutes until the pizza arrived and I downed 32 ounces of root beer. And once that cooling effect wore off 20 minutes later, I was back to being basted in hot turkey juices on Thanksgiving.

Thankfully...THANKFULLY there just happened, in this water-starved region, to be a swimming pool. Dear Lord. Rounding the bend and seeing that 300 feet below and seeing it the entire climb down was enough to make me sign away my soul for one 5 minute dip. I think it would have taken me all night to cool off without that small miracle.

And let me just tell you, the pizza we ordered (from The Pizza Place - good name) was about 800 times better than I expected from a random desert town. The root beer was also like feasting with Zeus on Mt. Olympus. I think I'm reacing the conclusion that after a long stretch of hiking, a clean pair of Depends would probably rank on par with finding Aladdin's lamp.

The Yogi Book's description of the park said it was the most depressing place on the trail, but all hiking-induced pizza euphoria aside, it really wasn't that bad. It wasn't Disney World or anything, but far from the horrible place they cast it as.

Except for the one bathroom. Broken urinal, flies buzzing around the toilet. I felt guilty even bringing my toothbrush in there. There was a puddle of something leaking out from the stall pooling under the urinal which made me try to pee outside, but it is a public park, so I went back in and went for it. Unfortunately I mostly added to the devil puddle because standing just outside of the puddle was also just far enough that only the peak pee stream reached the urinal. Oh well. Not like anypne was going to notice with the shape that place was in.

It was a great night for sleep though. Didn't even need my sleeping bag. I did hear something that sounded like two people havng sex being broadcast over a muffled loudspeaker, but nobody I was with knows what I'm talking about.

Even better, I didn't even need an alram this morning. A coyote (which I thought was someone's out of control dog) was howling at 5:00am. Just the time I was planning on getting up anyway (no sarcasm there, I really was getting up at 5:00am to beat the heat. See, I learned my lesson.

Trail Vertigo Part IV

2008-05-22T06:29:00.001-07:00

Hitting the pavement, seeing the sign for McDonald's 0.4 miles up the road and then actually turning the corner and seeing those big beautiful golden arches was one the most purely joyous moments of my life. I'd be hard pressed to think of a happier time. OK, I wouldn't be hard pressed, but this was a top ten happiest moments of my life. Stick that in a commercial Ray Kroc!

So after salivating and almost breathlessly ordering a quarter pounder meal, I make a phone call and while I'm talking, just starin into the hypnotically yellow french fries and zombie-like pushing them into my mouth.

"You're stuffing your face aren't you?" asks the voice on the other line.

"Yup," comes the involuntary response. The only thing that snapped me out of my food daze was realizing that I wasn't eating the fries with ketchup, a cardinal sin that I would regret if I got any farther into the mound of potatoes.

This McDonald's even had the nectar of the Pibb family. I drank Mr. Pibb's finest creation until I had a stomach ache.

After using the bathroom to freshen up homeless man style, and possibly making a group of older Australian tourists think I was actually homeless with my dazed wandering around the store (I repeatedly walked back and forth to the garbage can because I kept finding new things to throw out), I went outside to try and find a place to camp.

I searched for 10 minutes in this big dirt lot with parked construction vehicles in it, but couldn't find anything flat or comfortable, so I (in keeping with this homeless theme) found a soft, flat sandy spot in a ditch on the side of the road and set up my sleeping bag.

This after I feared that a real, in-the-flesh homeless person would fid me in the night, beat me senseless and rob me while I was zipped up and defenseless. But the vacant lot next to McDonald's was right on the highway and was surprisingly much louder than my trusty ditch. So the ditch won out despite my fears.

As I lay down, trying to keep my eyelids open for just a bit longer, stomach churning with fast food, the clouds break, and the moon shines down just for me on my sandy oasis on the PCT.

Trail Vertigo Part III

2008-05-22T06:27:00.001-07:00

The driving factor behind getting to the interstate was McDonald's. I know you're probably thinking, "You're supposed to be living the trail life and eating trail food not stuff you can get everyday." Well I'm telling you to step off, ho. I wanted some damn fries and an egg mcmuffin.

So I start hauling, broken up occasionally to talk with someone on the trail or take a picture, but for the most part I was trying to keep my pace above 3 mph.

After a short climb around mile 336, I start to notice clouds rolling in again over a far ridge, but one that I'm headed towards. I don't mind because at 338, I'm supposed to pass under some power lines and then it's only four miles and under two hours. Mile 338 came and it was only 6:30 so I'm 20 minutes ahead of schedule and really pumped. Unfortunately that's when things start to go a little screwy.

I walk into another patch of fog and this time it's wetter, windier and colder than earlier in the day. I stopped to pee and I start walking again and all of a sudden I feel wet on my lower leg.

"Damn! Did I piss all over myself and not know it?"

I look down and I've got wet patches on both legs which are getting larger by the step. The vegetation around the trail is also getting damp so my shoes and around my ankles are getting wet.

Now I start worrying about my camera in my pocket because they're now starting to get a little damp. I didn't feel like wrapping myself back up in my poncho but I figured it would protect my camera well enough. Go to grab my camera and what do I feel but my pocket being held together by maybe three threads and my camera half hanging out the bottom. Lucky save.

Down one pocket, but no less excited to be approaching McD's, I wind down a switch back and work my way around a hill and see some weird formation below me. It looks like a big easter egg shaped road criss crossed with other roads over the middle.

"What the hell..."

And out of the fog like an alien ship over New York City in Independence Day emerges this absolutely massive power line transmission tower.

"Oh. Fuck."

I specifically remember the Data Book description of the landmark as "Road under massive power line tower." I now start cursing the Data Book because the tower I thought was the right one was your average sized tower. This one loomed. It scowled down at you ready to throw lightning bolts like a metal Zeus.

I am half a heartbeat from packing it in and I might have if the sun weren't setting and I wasn't a bit condensationized.

So I start cursing up a storm yet again, mentally pushing my arrival time back with each curse later and later. I literally run down one hill in the hopes of shaving off a minute or two before remembering my climb up the "shortcut" the day before and decide to just walk fast instead of risking injury over a quarter pounder.

I cross under the actually massive tower, walk across a short field along a random fence line and emerge under yet another set of power lines.

Repeat paragraph beginning with "So I start cursing up a storm..." The bitch of it was there was an eagle perched atop this third (although average sized) tower that screeched and took flight as I was walking by.

"Sorry, eagle, no time for a picture. I've got a long fucking way to go."

At that moment I actually remembered the one battle scene from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar where he was being overly obvious with his allusions and had eagles flying over the one army to signal that they were the good guys and were going to win, and ravens and crows over the other to show that they were the losers decided by fate.

So I couldn't decide whether it was a good or bad sign that an eagle flew overhead in my time of despair, but being a major pessimist at that particular moment, I decided that the eagle was abandoning me and I was going to be carried home on my shield.

But what I did notice at that same moment away on the horizon were two cars, one passing the other. But I-15 is from what I read an eight lane highway, and this looked like a four laner at best, so I dashed that glimmer of hope on the rocks of despair.

At the same time, I passed over two dirt roads in quick succesion near the third power line, and the Data Book did mention something about two dirt roads in quick succession around mile 340 or 341.

After the other day I refused to abandon the trail if the landmarks and mileage and all the other wayfinding factors seemed right. No more succumbing to trail vertigo. Not to mention the fact that I had given up on cooking dinner for the night and was determined to eat McDonald's come hell or high water (they told us at the Kick Off not to make hell-or-high-water decisions on the trail, but fuck 'em - I was cold and hungry and that guy was tucked into his warm bed drinking milk and eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups).

Promisingly I came to a PCT marker just before a set of stone steps that had been cut into an incline leading into a canyon. The Guidebook said that just before hitting the highway, you go through a canyon.

One of the big things causing me to backtrack the day before was that coming around every turn was another mountain, and everytime I would come around one bend, another mountain in a never ending string that refused to open up.

This canyon...same thing. Turn, turn, turn, high canyon walls that don't stop. But I kept telling myself, just keep going, it will open up eventually.

Now, on the trail you hear and see things. One day I swore I saw a man in a blue shirt and white pants ahead of me, rushed to catch him and he never materialized. Then just the other day I definitely heard two people above me, but when I got to the ridge top, I looked over and it was a steep cliff. Nobody there.

So pardon me if I thought I was hearing things when I heard a guy talking over a loud speaker. A train line runs right by the trail and you could hear them going all day, so I convinced myself that if the guy were real it was somehow the echo of the conductor speaking to someone over the train's intercom.

But a minute or two later, I look up and left and see the canyon wall dip lower, meaning that hopefully it was about to open up onto the highway. And a few more seconds later, the white broad side of an eighteen wheeler's trailer.

I cheered non-stop for at least thirty secods and then broke into an impromptu rendition of the first few lines of Shania Twain's Still the One.

"Looks like we made it

Look how far we've come my baby

We might have took the long way

But we knew we'd get there someday..."

Trail Vertigo Part II

2008-05-22T06:26:00.002-07:00

So I hike back to the bridge and unbeknownst to me, there's a guy named Cuppa Joe already camped on a sandy beach below the bridge. But in my gotta-make-sure-I'm-not-lost tunnel vision, I didn't even stop to look.

In more good decision making, I decide to hike up a "shortcut" trail to gain some time back in my search. You'll see these shortcut trails from time to time cutting straight down from a higher portion of the trail to a lower, most likely used by people that are tired of switchbacking, or locals just looking to travel more quickly. Unfortunately they only make the journey shorter going down as they are really steep and are made up of loose dirt that causes you (or at least me anyway) to slip and make no progress.

Heart racing and no time saved, I make it back on to the trail a bit higher up and push on for a few minutes before running into Sundown, a guy I met earlier in the day.

He's having the same issues as me and we both start discussing where on the trail we might be. But when I tell him that I've been over the bridge and back, he sounds relieved. "Good. That's only supposed to be a few miles from the hot spring. Let's see if there's anybody there we can ask about the trail."

So we walk down together, he casually spots Cuppa Joe camping in the sand and asks him if we're headed the right way.

"Yeah. Just over the bridge and make a left around that way." He points to where I had come from about 45 minutes earlier.

Sundown and I decided to camp there as the bridge was as far as I was planning on hiking anyway and during my expedition to the right-but-thought-it-was-wrong side of the river, there was no real place to camp anyway.

After burning my tongue eating a rehydrated potato, cabbage and leeks dinner, I got to live out my skinny dipping wishes from earlier in the day, although I worried that hikers would come over the bridge, witness my psuedo bath and laugh at my exposed cheeks. Fortunately no one witnessed me shivering on the bank as I dried off (the wind always seems to kick up when you least want it to out here).

I warmed up pretty quickly because our camping spot was pretty damn sweet. Tucked into a little nook, all of the trees and tall grasses kept the wind out. That and it was a nice, warm night. Barely needed my sleeping bag.

This was my favorite night cowboy camping. It was the first time on the trail that I heard crickets, the moon was bright and full and looked like it was shining just for me. It felt like lying down on a Spring night back home.

I woke up at 5:00am because Cuppa Joe and Sundown said they were getting up early too. Neither were up when I climbed out of my bag. But I didn't curse them for my extra-early start because they were up soon enough, and Cuppa Joe was actually out hiking before I was.

Lucky for me because a few miles after the bridge you come to this useless dam that holds back no water. I come down the one side and start climbing up the other when I hear a voice calling my name from somewhere below me.

"God? Is that you? Have you finally decided to single me out for a religious mission?"

"Brad! You're going the wrong way!" Cuppa Joe calls to me from some tall grassses next to the mighty waters of the crossable-on-a-log creek that the dam struggles against daily.

Cuppa Joe directed me back to the trail and also to the logs to cross the creek that he didn't see until after he had already gotten wet fording it. Score one for me.

A few hours later we hit a real dam that held Silverwood Lake and me and a couple other people ate lunch there. The picnic area was really nice, except for the bathroom which nobody who's not hiking would have used, but let's just say that I had to go.

Skinny dipping incident number two also ocurred at lunch and I've come to realize that any swimming in the high altitudes in May is probably going to be cold. Also, the spot I put my clothes down on was an ant hot spot. Very fun cleaning them off.

The weather at the lake was not the greatest. Really windy, blowing stuff everywhere, including my toilet paper and maps which I had to fish out of the bushes. Clouds came over the ridge across from the one that the PCT climbs and soon the trail was covered in fog. I was getting wet, my poncho was impossible to keep covering me because the wind was blowing so hard and I started worrying that I'd have to make my first camp i the rain.

But after practically sprinting over the top of the ridge, the trail dropped down in elevation, the clouds disappeared and a rainbow came out across the valley. Couldn't take a picture of course because I stuffed my camera in a plastic bag, but still.

Now, here comes the fateful decision. It's about 4:20 when I hit mile 331.8. Interstate 15 is at 342. I think the fastest I've hiked so far on the trail is nine miles in two hours and 45 minutes, so I figure I can do 10 in three and a half.

Do I go for it or camp early and make I-15 in the morning? You know which way I went.

Trail Vertigo

2008-05-22T06:26:00.001-07:00

(Tuesday May 13, 2008)

I left Big Bear the other day hiking from Highway 18 and after a ways I get to a trail detour up some forest service roads because of a fire last year.

There wasn't much dager of a flare up, but they wanted people out because of falling limbs from dead trees.

Originally I had just planned on hiking through it anyway, but it was about 3:45pm when I got there so I wouldn't have made it all the way through before I would have to camp.

So no big deal. I hike on the Forest Service road detour (by the way PCT Guidebook, your Forest Service roads are not accurate and sometimes not even on the map so thanks for your help!) until about 7:00pm when I decide to pack it in and camp next to this giant mound of rocks.

I picked that spot because the detour, while trying to protect us from falling dead trees, took us right through a massive burned out area with nothing but dead trees in every direction. Good planning guys.

So now I'm paranoid that trees are going to fall on me so I figured this massive jumble of rocks would protect me from any crashing pines or firs or hickories.

Problem was that there wasn't a single area that could be made flat except next to one on the outside of the group that wanted to play just the tip. But in this version of everybody's favorite game, the tip of a really tall tree would be the only thing that would break off upon hitting the rock, leaving the rest of the thicker, lower portions to crush me. I figured it was better than nothing and held out hope that the rock would also perform some sort of deflectionary duty and the tree would break at the top and roll away, at the very worst ruining my tent.

Tree falling death scenarios aside, my biggest real concern was with maroon beetles and the most awful sounding bird alive.

I'm guessing that these beetles are one of those harbingers of a burned out forest's recovery because I haven't seen them anywhere else on the trail and they were everywhere in the detour. They wopuldn't do anything to you, just fly on you and sit. But even though I am one with nature right now so to speak, I didn't want these bastards flying all over me for any reason.

So I set up my tent, which I wasn't originally planning on doing, but they forced me to and I climb inside, get myself situated and start writing when I hear this sound like an animal being strangled to death.

I have no clue what it could be and hoped that whatever it was would be satisfed with the meal it had just made for itself and wouldn't come looking for larger prey.

Then I hear it again, higher up in a tree...and again...and again. The most annoying bird ever created. It's not even like it's an eagle or hawk. At least when they screech, hey're probably about to capture a squirrel or mouse. This thing on the other hand is a small bird and should be singing sweet sounds to lull you to sleep. Instead we get the victims of a roving strangler.

i wonder who it was that woke me up at 5:00am? Ugly bastard.

So...the hiking continues and after a few hours, I make it around to mile 291 where the detour rejoins with the trail. I can't say where exactly I started, but I'd been going for around two and a half hours or so. The same time later on, I make it to a bridge at 297, so I figure I went about the same distance in the morning.

I decide at lunch to head for the Deep Creek ford at mile 312. That's 15 on top of the 12 or so in the morning, but it was only about 1:00pm when I set out for the afternoon and the sun hadn't started setting until well after 7:00pm, so I figured I had plenty of time.

Fast forward four hours and I haven't seen a single person since lunch or a single marker indicating that I'm on the PCT. It's easy to mindlessly wander because for the most part, there's nowhere else to go on the PCT. Occasionally it will cross a jeep road or meet up with another trail, but most of the time you're walking on a two foot wide trail on the side of a mountain with nowhere to go but forward. And so I had been walking forward for four hours without thinking.

So I decide to check the map. Down to my left are a bunch of people hangig out at a camp near the river. The map says that should be the Holcomb Trail Camp and if it is, there should be a hot spring nearby. The description in the Guidebook says to look out for skinny dippers. Two heavyset naked guys are standing facing away from me. Ok then.

So I'm in the right place, and if I keep going, I should hit what the Guidebook describes as a 90 foot steel and wood arch bridge. I figure I'll get there about 6:00pm, but winding down the switchbacks, I hit it at 5:15pm. It's a little early, but the bridge is in fact about 90 feet as good as I can guess from looking and its made of steel and wood and in the shape of an arch.

I am worried because I got there way early, but again I check the Guidebook description and it says that after you cross the bridge you head west along an old aqeduct wall, and the creek will drop about 150 feet below you with cottonwoods and alders on its banks.

I check my compass. I'm heading in a westerly direction. I saw the aqeduct wall when I was coming down to the bridge and now I'm walking alongside it. The creek looks about 150 feet down and there are trees along it's banks.

I check my altimeter and it's supposed to read somewhere between 3200 and 3800 feet. It pauses, the displays 3400 feet.

And last but not least, the Guidebook says to be on the lookout for something below near the creek that the Forest Service is planning to convert into an equestrian camp. After a few minutes, there is some kind of shack down near the creek. I'm no equestrianologist, but it's close enough for me.

Except that for some reason, I decide to check the map one more time to see what side of the river I'm supposed to be on and look knowingly at the wrong map. I knew I was past that map and yet I looked at it and it said I was supposed to be left of the river while I'm standing up on the right. So I panic.

Even though my altitude was right, even though I saw the naked dudes at the hot spring, even though I passed over the steel and wood arch bridge heading west along the aqueduct wall past what could possibly be a horse related shack, I looked at a map that I knew was for a part of the trail I had already passed and decided to ignore every landmark in favor of freaking out and turning around to hike back until I found another hiker who would tell me I was on the right path.

Just Get a Nicer Boss

2008-05-22T06:25:00.000-07:00

(Thursday, May 15, 2008)

My horoscope for May 15, 2008 in the Daily Press - "You can improve your job this year by getting a different job, improving your duties or having a nicer boss. Something for the better is going to happen!"

You know what? I will get a nicer boss.

"Hey Boss, you're fired and I'm replacing you with someone nicer!"

Oh wait, that didn't work and now I'm fired and have to get a new job.

Hey, I have a nicer boss at this new job and my duties are much improved.

Thanks, horoscope. Things for the better really are happening!

Big Bear Woman

2008-05-22T06:16:00.000-07:00

(Sunday May 12, 2008)

My efforts to go skinny dipping have failed. I'm under the Deep Creek Bridge and as the name implies, you can go swimming in the river. No one was around when I got here so I decided after lunch I was going to go for a swim. Then when I was finishing off the last of my cheddar slices, a couple I passed before came down off the path and started fishing on the other bank...Damn.

Speaking of nakedness, I was in K-Mart the other day looking for fuel for my stove. I had already been to two grocery stores and Rite Aid, and the couple offering me a ride to the trailhead from Big Bear were waiting, so I walked in and went right for the first employee I saw, which was a woman working the jewelery counter.

"Excuse me, ma'am? I was wondering if you could tell me where the sporting goods department is."

She starts answering without looking and I notice my pants are a little loose, so I go to adjust the belt and a finger slips into my wide open fly. Now this normally wouldn't be a big deal, but since I hike sans underwear, I didn't want to offend Gladys' delicate sensibilities. So before she directs her full attention, I break the world record for zipper closing and she's never the wiser.

Speaking of being exposed, I was walking around Big Bear Lake the day before I left, checking out the food and shops, and I decided to go into this one called Rejoyce.

It was a women's store, but I figured I might find something to send someone as a gift, so I wandered around, smelled some soaps and candles, thought about grabbing an old cigarette case that someone could use as a wallet, and then chatted up the saleswoman who suggested a real wallet and talked to me about real estate prices (affordable area, great place to live, lots to do and see, so if you're in the mood for a change of scenery, Big Bear is for you).

I went to pay with my credit card, but this ws one of the five places in America that actually tries to protect its customers' cards from fraudulent use, and I had hapened to forget mine at the hostel. I told her I'd be right back and left to get it.

I walk into the store, ID in hand and up to the register, but no one's there. I turn around to scan the store and directly to my left is an open dressing room and a hefty denizen of Big Bear standing topless trying on a shirt.
But right then, all I saw were the outer edges of two sagging breasts and some pale rolls poking out from behind the saleswoman who thankfully blocked my view while trying to help the woman out.

I turned on my heel immediately and said "Sorry!" while the saleswoman, in a Sherlockian bit of deduction, yelled "Oh! There's customers in the store!" I guess she forgot that even though the store was empty, it was still open for business.

As I was paying, the woman in the dressing room walks out. "I don't like the shirt. It doesn't look good. It's too small."

Lady, you don't have to tell us twice.

Big News in Cali

2008-05-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

Finally Lars and I can make it official!

Pics Posted

2008-05-09T23:04:00.001-07:00

I posted the pictures I've taken so far on Webshots. Here's the URL - http://community.webshots.com/user/jimmymango?vhost=community

Sorry for the delay with that, but this is the first time I've had the opportunity to sit down and upload them. Also, because this is a community computer - and a dinosaur on top of that - at a hostel (not hospital), it took me all day just to get them up there, so I didn't have a chance to rotate all of the vertical ones so they look normal. I'll fix that when I can. But now I just need to go to sleep because it's way past hiker bedtime.

Hope you enjoy.

Where, Oh Where, Has My Water Gone?

2008-05-09T13:39:00.000-07:00

(Thursday May 8, 2008)
Last night I slept at the Heart Bar campground which was a ways off the PCT down a California Hiking and Riding trail. Problem was, after walking for about a half hour down the trail, there was no campground and the spring that was supposed to be a half mile down in case you didn't want to walk all the way to the campground, was either dry or I'm blind. Probably blind, but either way I didn't see it.

So after a 24 mile day, I was ready to settle in, but unfortunately there was no campground at the end of the line, so I just parked it in a flat spot and sat down to rest.

Scratch that. I never really sat down until I climbed in my sleeping bag because it was after 7:00 and I was somewhere around 8000 feet which means that when the sun starts to go down the temperature doesn't linger for even a second at anything close to comfortable. It's warm until it's not. Then it's freezing.

Adding to the problem was my sweat-soaked clothing and empty stomach, so when I found the flat spot to camp, it was like a grenade went off inside my pack.

Stuff went everywhere. Clothes, bags, equipment strewn about this tiny area while I "made" dinner, which consisted of me eating a piece of cold pre-cooked chicken breast and a bag of Pop Tarts.

Then because I saw a spider on my bag, I figured ants couldn't be far away (how I reasoned that one is beyond me) so instead of packing away my garbage, I strategically placed it at points a good bit away from my stuff to lure the ants away from me (again, the basis for this reasoning is slightly less than sound).

So after crawling into my bag (completely ignoring my pre-sleep trail cleanliness regimen) I realize that by not packing the stuff away, I could be attracting animals that otherwise wouldn't smell the garbage in the first place...then I decided it was too cold to get out of my bag and went to sleep. Luckily no animals appeared, at least that I know of.

Morning wasn't much better. I decided to eat the Pop Tarts with dinner because I thought I had two packages left. Well, my last package was devoured as the side to my chicken à la antarctica, so wouldn't ou know I had dinner for breakfast. Except this time it was pieces of chicken instead of a whole breast - pieces in icy cold broth that I was fishing out with my finger because I was too lazy to get out my spork. The whole experience was enough to make me want to vomit the entire meal despite being very hungry. Weirdly enough I would have been happy in a way if that happened, but quickly enough there were other things coming up to distract and anger me (of course based on my excellent planning skills).

Because of a lack of campground or spring the night before, I was down to one and a half liters of water to start the next day. It really wasn't too big of a deal because Coon Creek was 4 miles away and I could get some from there.

Fast forward to 8:30 and I start loking for some water flow. I head down the jeep road which is supposed to intersect with the creek, and pissed off and tired, I return waterless at 9:50.

So now I've got just over a liter and 9 miles to go before the next definite water source. After that experience, I think I have a small inkling of what it might be like to be an addict.

Because I'll be in Big Bear City Friday morning, I knew I would be able to get whatever I wanted to drink short of absinthe, so I was fixated on anything cold. Ice water, milk, apple juice, beer, Gatorade, you name it - I was ready to sell my soul to quench my thirst. I vowed that the second I got into Big Bear, I'd head to the first restaurant I could find and order a large glass of milk, apple juice, a pitcher of ice water and tell the waitress to keep them coming.

It was taking every ounce of mental strength not to down every bit of water that I had, to sip slowly and in small gulps. Absolutely tortuous. Like being stranded at sea. Water, water everywhere and none to drink. Even a bear wasn't enough to distract me.

I'm walking around mile 249 and all of a sudden I hear this noise that sounded like the noise Barry White would make if he were a massive yawning dog.

I thought to myself, that kind of sounded like a lion or a bear. And it went on for like 30 seconds, but because I didn't want it to be a bear, I convinced myself it was someone starting up their weird sounding dirt bike.

But, lo and behold, I come to a jeep road and I look up and see a woman hosing off a bear in a cage. Talk about your surreal sights. Apparently there is a ranch there in the middle of the woods with - pardon the overused phrase - lions and tigers and bears (you probably said "Oh my!" on your own, so I didn't write it).

I don't know what they do with these animals, but there were cages with massive bears in them. Unfortunately I didn't get to see my 2nd favorite animal and former school mascot the tiger, but I guess I could always go back if I wanted to. That or India. Or Africa. Or a zoo. Whichever way.

So of course the woman was hosing the bear down and I thought for some time whether she would do the same for me if I asked her, but decided to just keep trudging on.

And let me tell you that a mile later, I literally gasped and let out some other weird noise before quietly exclaiming "Water!" to myself as 50 feet in front of me was a water cache left courtesy of the Nature's Inn and Big Bear Hostel. A shrewd tactic, but effective nonetheless as my current residence is in fact the Big Bear Hostel (sorry Nature's Inn, this place was cheaper and closer to the action).

I only took a liter from the cache (so much for my endless flow of drinks for breakfast on Friday), but after fillig the bottle with Gatorade powder, it felt like I had just been put through my first orgy. Overly satisfied, slightly damp, unsure how I got there, and thanking the Big Bear Hostel and Nature's Inn for their gift from heaven. Although I think after (and probably during) an orgy people thank God and not independent California hoteliers, but then again, what do I know about orgies?

Walking Through a Wind Farm

2008-05-09T13:38:00.000-07:00

(Wednesday May 7, 2008)
The toughest day followed by the most annoying day.

After walking 15 miles to the nearest water source (while at the same time descending around 4000 feet, which is hard on the knees), I get lost for 15 minutes walking along a road which the trail clearly crosses over and continues Northwest, a fact which I chose to acknowledge via map and then still ignore.

One of the problems with getting lost for 15 minutes on this part of the trail is that it is an area on which a rather large wind farm was built, meaning - you guessed it - it was fucking windy.

Walking through the massive open field between Snow Creek, CA and I-10 is probably the closest thing you'll ever experience to a low grade hurricane, but without the risk of death.

Some of the gusts were so strong that they stood you up and you couldn't move. Very fun when you're trying to walk 4 miles across.

The best part is that because the winds are so strong, there is no actual trail because the wind would just keep shifting the sands and erasing it. So while trying not to get blown over, you have to scan your surroundings and look for the next five foot high post with a PCT marker on it (some of which, of course, have been blown over). Also a very fun task.

(By the way, two dragonflies just landed on a stick in front of me and are now mating...finally some action on this trip!)

Luckily once I crossed under the highway, the wind started to blow at my back, so going up some hills, it literally carried me up. While a welcome change, it also forced me to run on the downhills or fall on my face or off the side of the trail. Yay nature!

So after miles and more miles, I start to get hungry (this is around 5:00) and I start to look for a good campsite. But this being the PCT, there was absolutely no place to camp until 7:00 unless I wanted to take my chances with a steep hill, or sleep directly on the rocky uneven trail.

Luckily I was able to camp at the Whitewater Preserve, which sits along Whitewater Creek around mile 219. It had picnic tables and bathrooms, which was very nice, but because there is such an abundance of water unlike everywhere else in the desert, they also have sprinklers to water the grass and trees.

So wouldn't you know I wake up to find my sleeping bag covered in little beads of water, which had soaked into the down feathers of my bag. Also my shirt, which had been hanging in a tree, fell off the branch and was a soaking mess when I went to put it on. Yay abundance of water!

Earlier today, Squatch, a guy who makes PCT documentaries stopped and chatted with me and asked if I had anything interesting to say for an interview. My response: "Eh...I got nothing."

Slipping and Sliding

2008-05-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

(Monday May 5, 2008)
Snow on the trail is not fun. I was hiking with a guy named oPa and both of us fell off the trail and started sliding doewn the mountain. YEE HAW!

I probably should have been more scared but then I remembered I own this bitch. Ok,not really, but I'm definitely buying an ice axe before I hit the Sierras.

I Love Idyllwild...and So Should You

2008-05-09T13:35:00.001-07:00

(Sunday May 4, 2008)
I'm only a week or so in, but this trip keeps surprising me. From the moment I set foot on the trail, the scenery and mountain vistas were much more amazing and beautiful than I expected, and it all came much sooner than I imagined.

I expected that it would be "Eh" with a couple of Ooos and Ahhs mixed in until I started climbing into the Sierras and then I figured it would get real spectacular.

But every day I'm surprised by what I see, so much so that I've almost gotten used to it. That really isn't true at all, but I've stopped taking so many pictures because 1) I'll run out of memory and 2) even though it's all extremely beautiful and worthy of an depression-abating cubicle nature poster, it can all start looking the same after a while. And that's the real beauty. It rarely ever stops (okay, maybe in the godforsaken desert).

You get these uninterrupted views that go for miles and miles, 180 degrees or more and the mountains stand before you one clear range, one hazy range beyond that, another one still more vague and finally the tallest one above all the rest only a shadowy outline.

Everything is green, even the desert to a great extent. But its all a deceiving green. Except for a few stretches, much of what you think is forest covering the landscape is what's called chaparral. Chaparral is what sprouts up after a forest fire - of which there have been many in the last decade - and while pretty from a distance, up close it's dense, short and sharp.

And so if you can get past what can be sometimes ugly and oftentimes annoying when it starts crowding the trail, you see things at every turn that you've probably never seen before in your life.

Hiking the PCT has been what I expected, and like nothing I imagined. I'm meeting great people, seeing wildlife, experiencing awesome towns which I might never have known about without the hike.

Idyllwild is one of those towns. Real quaint, a big fish in a small pond (population 3500 surrounded by towns with less than 500 a piece), but someplace you'd love to have as your summer home if you had the money.

You're right in the middle of a state park, so it's nice and quiet, there's a good downtown area with a bunch of bars and restaurants, a movie theater, homegrown shops, pretty much everything you could need in a little self contained community.

You wouldn't need AC because the nights are cold and even on the hottest days you'd just sit in the shade and it will be 30 degrees cooler than in the sun because there's no humidity.

There's a sign as you walk (I should say "I" because you'd most likely drive) into town that says "Idyllwild - Entrance to America's Cleanest Forest" and they mean it. The place is clean in every sense of the word.

People always say "I'm going to get some fresh air" but this is the only place I've ever been where I can truly say that. The air is so fresh and clean up here it's hard to describe. It's like that frigid January morning when you go out to warm up your car and the world hasn't started moving yet, that refreshing inhale before you open the door and turn the key. It feels almost delicious to breathe.

The hike is hard, no doubt about that. Since the trail is closed for almost 30 miles, a group of us hiked like the world was on fire to Idyllwild along roads. My feet and knees are beat to shit right now, but the experience of the ups and downs, good and bad have made the trip worth it already, even if I've only been here a short time.

Remind me of this post in a couple weeks when I claim that I'd rather be at home lying naked watching Disney movies with Cheetos residue covering my lips and fingers...actually I would rather be doing that right now. Well, remind me if I start to wish for anything other than nude Disney Cheetos afternoons.

I Love Idyllwild...and So Should You

2008-05-09T13:35:00.000-07:00

The Desert Sucks

2008-05-09T13:33:00.000-07:00

(Saturday May 3, 2008 - 3:53pm)
The desert is hot as balls. No shade. Cool wind occasionally. Rattlesnakes, lizards, an extremely blue bird and some groundhog looking thing are all the animal life I've seen. Even the desert crows sound pretty crappy compared to the ones back home. Like they've been chain smoking for 30 years or have too much dust on their caw-ing muscles. Needless to say I don't like the desert much.

No Mountain Partying for Me

2008-05-09T13:31:00.001-07:00

(Saturday May 3, 2008 - 1:00pm)
Last night I camped at a guy named Mike's house. He's someone who's known as a trail angel and although it sounds vaguely pornographic, it's just someone who helps hikers out.

The guy wasn't even there when we rolled in around 7:30pm and actually never showed up during the entire time I was there.

But who did show up was a truck full of Spanish-speaking guys who started unloading stuff from the truck that I couldn't see.

I of course start fearing for my life, picturing myself in the wrong place during some kind of drug or contraband exchange that was about to go horribly wrong. But I just fell back asleep hoping I wouldn't wake up with a black bag over my head chained to a wall.

As it turns out, they were Mike's friends coming in with beer and 100 lbs. of chicken for a Cinco de Mayo party that they were throwing tonight.

The guys were really nice and good hosts while Mike was away, offering us coffee and a home cooked breakfast. And if these guys were secretly the bad men I had originally suspected, they were the nicest bad men I ever met in my life. The type of bad man I one day aspire to be.

But unfortunately, I did not stick around for what I'm sure will be a night filled with debauchery and exposed flesh.

If I hadn't just stayed two nights in Warner Springs maybe, but I had to get moving or I'd never make it out of Southern California.

So tonight it's another 10 miles, then a ride into Idyllwild, then I get to figure out what to do about the trail and the fire closures.

Not as exciting as getting hammered at a cabin in the middle of nowhere, but what can you do?

No Mountain Partying for Me

2008-05-09T13:31:00.000-07:00

Love and Steven Segal

2008-05-09T13:30:00.000-07:00

(Saturday May 3, 2008 - 12:49pm)
The other night when I was up writing in a towel and snow hat, i was probably the only awake person out and about. There were no hikers or other non-hiking guests, no employees, no one. Just me and a raccoon that I initially thought was a cat.

So I come out of the resort's computer room and I hear this cheesy music playing over the loudspeakers in the lodge. It was that Kenny G-type elevator jazz saxophone playing wordless pop hits. I think the tune I heard then was Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston.

Then I remembered that this was the same music that was playing down at the hot spring when all of the hikers were there swimming and drinking.

I remember walking in, and I see a quiet pool with steam coming off, surrounded by soft lighting, people swimming slowly back and forth to the shitty music. The whole scene made me feel like I was an extra in what was about to be a Steven Segal love scene.

But aside from that, if you ever have a chance to do a southern California road trip, make the Warner Springs Ranch one of your stops. Someone's bound to leave there pregnant.

Back to It

2008-05-09T13:16:00.000-07:00

(Friday May 2, 2008)
Finally hit the trail again after two nights in Warner Springs. Wasn't planning on one night's stay let alone two, but fire has a way of changing plans.

Now I'll still end up in Idyllwild on Sunday, but it will most likely be the afternoon instead of the evening like I had originally hoped. Hopefully the Mt. San Jacinto campground is open because I heard the entire town was flooded with hikers either trying to wait out the fire or get alternate hiking plans set.

I just don't feel like spending money on a hotel room after two unbudgeted days in Warner Springs. The campground is only $2 a night so that would be clutch.

I heard that the town was swamped with hikers while I was at the cantina getting drunk with about 50 other hikers.

An old guy with about three teeth says that the fire was messing with his funds which were waiting for him in Idyllwild. So he asks me to buy him a drink and I oblige. Anything to help out a fellow hiker.

We all sit back down at our table and he comes over with us, sits in an empty seat and starts picking through our eaten baskets of food for leftover fries.

He was digging through chicken bones and greasy wax paper, gobbling up every last one. I wished I hadn't bought him the drink and got him some food instead so I didn't have to witness what was ocurring in front of me.

"Ohhh! A pickle!"

I look over and there he is, caught a gerkin on the end of his line, head tilted back mouth open, pickle going in...appetizing!

Watching him try to eat the pickle with his one sharp incisor at least made up for all the rest.

Speaking of food, I'm done with my lunch now, just waiting for my socks and shoes to dry out as I just had to cross a river with no rocks to hop on.

But I don't know how much longer I want to wait because these two flies won't stop bothering me. Probably because I killed their one friend and now they're his avenging angels.

Either way, I'm out until I'm back in. Hasta luego.

If It's the Wrong Decison, I'll Make It

2008-05-02T05:18:00.000-07:00

(Friday April 25, 2008)
I got in on Thursday and managed to make two screw ups in two days. At this rate it will be 140 for the trip.

I got into San Diego and I have no food, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing but when you haven't thought out what exactly you're going to eat each day, then your situation's not so hot.

So instead of thinking about what I want for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks for the five days its going to take me to get to Warner Springs, I just decided, "Oh this looks good. Mmm, I'd like to eat that. Can't wait to eat these!"

And that's how I ended up carrying $250 worth of food three quarters of a mile back to the house I was staying at.

Originally I was just going to take a cart, bring the food to the house, then cart the food I was mailing to myself (that was part of the $250 too) to the post office and then return the cart to the store. Sounds logical, no? And it was which was why I didn't do it.

So there I am walking two blocks with what felt like 75 pounds of food in ten plastic bags. Then my arms started getting tired so it became a block. Then the bags started ripping. Then I heard a car full of girls drive by and laugh.

Eventually I would just kneel on the ground like I was genuflecting to the hiking gods and then spring up and walk as fast as I could to whatever landmark I picked out. By the end my face looked like I was getting an enema of fire. Good times.

That turned out to be a great plan because I showed up with my packages at the post office 15 minutes before they closed, with only one of my two packages in a box and no tape. In what turned out to be a post office miracle, someone had left a roll of tape there earlier and I was able to use that to seal up my bounce box. I was the last customer served and they had to unlock the doors to let me leave.

In hiking foolishness, I of course got lost during my first day on the trail, which wouldn't have been a big deal if I decided to wait for someone to help me out.
Instead, when faced with the choice of three trail directions, I decided to go with my gut and picked two wrong choices before finally waiting for someone who pointed out an arrow made of sticks that someone had left to guide unsure hikers on the right path.

Pissed that I wasted an hour or more of time that could have been spent heading to Lake Morena, I hightailed it down the trail, not making my usual stops for water and snacks. By the time I got to the campground, I was covered in salt, the sun was setting, dinner was finished being served and I couldn't get my tent set up correctly.

After taking an absolutely freezing shower and eating cold chicken out of a foil packet, I climbed into my tent, which sagged onto my face because it I set it up wrong.

Before I passed out, I cursed the Pacific Crest Trail and vowed to quit the next day.

But thankfully a night of uncomfortable sleep and waking up with condensation all over my sleeping bag was enough to calm me down and give it another shot.

So I'm sitting in a grove of trees making PB&J and doing some writing. My feet hurt and my shoulder is sore, but I must admit as hard as long distance hiking is (it's pretty fucking hard) the trail is a nice place to be.

The Fruit of Schmidt

2008-05-02T05:17:00.001-07:00

(Sunday April 27, 2008)
Hiking may be hard but it's more dirty than anything. This will be my third day not showering and it feels like the 50th.

Dust really has a way of getting into everything, even the far corners of deeply packed compartments. You'd be amazed when you take out a jacket or shirt and you see a thin film of trail dust on something that hasn't been out of your bag all day.

What you wouldn't be amazed at is the dirt that's everywhere else, all over your hands, shirt, coating your legs, caking into cement under your finger and toe nails. It is pretty damn disgusting.

The worst part is putting on your sleeping clothes, which are for the most part clean because all you do is sleep in them, and climbing into your bag for what you think will be a peaceful sleep, but your dirty skin rubbing together makes you feel like you're covered in pond scum.
In other news, I smell fantastic.

At first it smelled somewhat fragrant, to the point that I thought it was some weird smelling PCT plant that I kept passing. It wasn't a great smell, but if it was B.O., then it was a desirable B.O.

I was starting to call it the Fruit of Schmidt, but then day three rolled around and it was just plain evil.

Hiking last night up onto the top of some mountain (it's windy up on top of mountains by the way) I soaked my shirt because it was a hard climb and I was trying to make it to a clear spot before the sun went down.

The next day, despite having left it out all night, the thing hadn't dried out at all and I tried putting it on, but at 5:15am, it was too cold and a little too disgusting even for PCT hiking.

Luckily today fog rolled in from the ocean and brought with it freezing cold air so when I eventually had to put the gross long sleeve on, it dried out from the 60 mph winds. Like I said, it's windy on top of mountains.

I thought the second day coming out of Lake Morena was bad with wind, but today I at two separate times thought I was going to be blown off the mountain as the wind was pushing me sideways on a two and a half foot wide path on the side of a cliff.

Go figure my camera battery died today so I couldn't take a picture of the clouds coming in over the other mountains across the valley. Just use this description to get a mental picture - clouds. Pretty sweet looking isn't it?

Alright lords and ladies, lunch is finito and I'm back to hiking. Yahtzee!

Trail Idiot

2008-05-02T05:16:00.000-07:00

(Saturday April 26, 2008)
When I was sitting in the grove of trees yesterday writing and relaxing, I overheard this conversation:

Idiot: So do you have cell phone service here?
No Service: No.
Idiot: What do you use? Verizon?
No Service: No. Sprint.
Idiot: I thought it didn't matter what provider you had as long as you had roaming.

I shook my head then and I'm shaking it now thinking about it.

No, Idiot, that is not the definition of roaming. Despite the fact that you are "roaming" along the PCT, you do not have cell phone service at all times.

In other news, I hike a lot faster than I thought. I started at Burnt Rancheria (mile 41) today and the next water stops were at 47, 48 and 52. So I figure it will take me 4 hours or so with breaks to get to mile 47. I started at 6:45am so I figured I'd be there around 11:00.

So 11:30 rolls around and I'm not seeing the campground at mile 47. Then all of a sudden I walk into the Pioneer Mail Picnic Area at mile 52.

I passed the campground two hours before and even stopped there to take a picture without knowing it. Good times.

I was actually worried that I wouldn't be able to get water at Pioneer Mail because two people who were leaving as I got there told me there were dead rats in or near the water.

An older hiker named Lucky went up there and came back down to tell me that those people were full of shit. And they were. The water came out of a spigot crysal clear.

Nature calls and then it's back to the trail.

Late Night

2008-05-01T22:28:00.001-07:00

Did you ever notice how soft mineral hot springs make your skin feel? Neither did I until just now.

First of all, these things reek of sulfur, meaning that in some small capacity they have something in common with feces, but really the comparisons end there. Whereas jumping into a pool of feces would probably make you want to die if the toxins didn't kill you first, on a cold night such as tonight, jumping into mineral hot springs was like heaven incarnate.

You're probably asking, "I thought this buffoon was on a hike?" And you'd be right, I am. But every hiker needs a break now and then, so here I am taking one. But that doesn't really explain it adequately. Yesterday, there was a cold front coming in off the Pacific (at this point I'd like to mention that Pocketmail - the device that I'm using to send emails from the trail when I don't have Internet access - doesn't work through Verizon. And of course I have Verizon, so any posts I make must be made from a land line and the resort that I'm at has neither room phones or televisions, so I'm still trying to work that out. So if I mention anything here and then again in a subsequent post, now you know why. Anyway, back to the story) and it brought to the PCT cold ass high speed winds. This is quite the change from slight breezes and oppressive heat, so without sweating your *insert dirty body part* off for 10 hours per day, you have a lot more energy to devote to walking. Thus, I got to where I expected to camp for the night at 3:30pm.

I got to talking with some people and the possibility of hiking to Warner Springs (the town I expected to reach the next day) came up. And so I decided not to waste the daylight and get my ass there. So me and three other guys hauled ourselves eight miles in three hours and got ourselves rooms for the night.

Let me tell you that after not showering for four days and sleeping in a tent for six, getting a hotel room is slightly more than enticing.

I get into the bathroom and I turn on the water, dreaming of a hot shower and all that it could possibly be, but the water keeps getting colder and colder, and I keep opening up the Hot knob more and more, but nothing's happening. Quickly I begin cursing my luck as the worst in the world, blaming God for having me hike 28 miles in one day only to be greeted by an arctic shower, and then I decide to just open up the Cold knob and wouldn't you know out comes the Hot water. Oh those jokers over at the Warner Springs Ranch. They got me.

Orgasmic. Hot water and soap never felt so good. I honestly could have died at that moment and I would not have cared. No kids, no fame or fortune, no execution of the soon-to-be-infamous bank heist that I've been planning...nothing. I would not have cared. It was a beautiful thing.

So anyway, this pornography has gone on for to long. So fast forward to 4:00pm today. Warner Springs lets you do an extended check out, which basically means that if you ask to stay past the 10:00am checkout, they'll let you stay until 4:00pm for free. Fine by me.

But the problem with that is that staying in this lovely place with its beer and food and bed and hot showers and pools and hot springs is just so tempting. I hung around and waited for the cleaning ladies to come and kick me out, but 4:00pm became 5:00pm and one beer became another and then I just said, "Fuck it!" and enjoyed the camaraderie of all of the other hikers pouring into the resort to avoid the forest fire.

Oh yeah. Sorry, forgot to mention that one. A burning stump started a forest fire that closed down the PCT for quite a ways and messed up more than a few hikers' plans, myself included. So it was either leave town this afternoon and hike a few miles, haul ass to get a 25+ mile day in Friday so that I have enough time to make it into Idyllwild on Saturday between 1:00pm and 3:00pm when their post office is open (I'm expecting packages there). Also, there's no outgoing mail from that post office on Saturday so I would also have to hike two miles to the next town to mail food ahead to myself at the next town stop. That or I could stay another night and take some easy days on the trail and get to Idyllwild on Sunday night or Monday morning.

So here I sit, having just taken a shower to wash the sulfur smell of the mineral hot springs off of me, blogging to you, my minions. I didn't even use soap because I had my shorts in there to clean them off as well, and I was smelling them, you know to do a check as to the effectiveness of my work, and the smell was out. So I smelled myself, and aside from my right armpit which is like genetically predisposed to stink for no reason and before any other part of my body even begins the process of starting to emit pungent odors, I didn't smell either.

Now, it's could be the 1/4 Black portion of my blood, it could be the part of me that descends from the British Isles, but whatever it is, my skin gets dry as hell. So it's nothing new to me to get out of the shower and immediately reach for the lotion (By the way, Warner Springs Ranch has soap, lotion and shampoo made exclusively for it and the stuff smells pretty good. I don't know if you can order it, but you should try to get some. I'm not stealing any for anyone you bunch of dirtbags so don't ask). But as I'm drying off, I notice that my skin is as smooth as if I already put some lotion on. Then I look in the mirror, because the face is the real test, and wouldn't you know, instead of crusty whiteness around my nose and on my forehead, I'm just a baby's behind all over.

So I thought to myself, I've got to blog about it. So I walked over to the computer room wearing a towel, a yellow short sleeve dry fit shirt and my red St. Joe's winter hat. No shoes. I look stunning. But I did it for you my minions, so that you would know the hardships that I go through for you.

Right now, I'm going back to my room, going to grab Pocketmail and try to use one of the resort's phones now that the restaurant desk is unattended. So you'll have my blogs from the 27th and 28th. I swore I had more, but that's all that are in there. Maybe I accidentally deleted them.

Alright, I'm off to send the Pocketmails, then sleep, then back to making the magic happen so I can report it for your entertainment.

And don't forget - Don't get high off your own supply.

Time of My Life

2008-04-25T06:06:00.000-07:00

"Life sucks and then you die. You go all through life and then you get hit by a fucking bus." Or so says my mom after her heart fluttered picturing herself and Patrick Swayze Dirty Dancing together at a mountain resort in upstate New York in the early 1960s.

While fanning herself, her dream was interrupted by the realization that such a reality may never come to pass due to Mr. Swayze's unfortunate bout with pancreatic cancer. And thus the basis for her pessimistic statement about human existence.

In a way, I think the same thing. We're born, we live, we die. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. I mean it's not good that The Swaze has a life-threatening illness, but you can't say that he didn't lead a good life while he was here. I mean the guy can act, dance, sing (She's Like the Wind still makes this guy's pants fall off at an alarming pace), was a stud in his heyday and world famous. So when the topic of his cancer came up, my mom thought of the "fucking bus," but I didn't see it that way.

My mom is right though in that a bus could just come along and run you over, or a badger could target you in a woodland killing spree, or you feel the need to defy reason and try and beat Jumanji.

Alot of people have asked me if I'm scared or nervous and aside from some anxiety over whether I left something important at home, I'm not really at all. People worry about bears and cougars, and I'll do my best not get eaten but if it's my turn to go, it's my turn. And like The Swaze has Dirty Dancing and Ghost, I'll have the PCT.

But I wouldn't have the PCT without the help and encouragement of my friends and family. I know that my decision wasn't received well initially, but in time everyone in my life came to see how important going on the hike was to me and offered words of encouragement and support right up until I left.

My family really took to Hike4Autism and at this point it feels like they've done more to promote it than I have, so an extra special thanks and an I love you to Madre and Padre, Young Z and the Useless Dean.

I also want to say thanks to Kile Garguilo for driving me to the airport at 4am. He works in the upper reaches of the Comcast Center (Philadelphia's first green skyscraper) with a nice view of City Hall, loves gardening and is a homeowner. Grab this one ladies before he gets away!

It would be infinitely more difficult (not to mention very infrequent) for me to post these stories to my blog without Joe Mohne and Andre Laboy who have agreed to handle the emails I'm writing while out blazing trails.

I could thank many more people specifically but I'd hate to leave someone out, so just know that I appreciate all of the support and help of everyone. It took a lot to get me here and you really eased my path.

Alright Minions, we're in the air and this thing isn't even supposed to be on (at least the FAA's investigation will be short) so syonara and I'll talk to you from the Golden State soon.

Daily Record Blogging

2008-04-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

My local paper the Daily Record is going to be doing a feature on me sometime this week or next and are coming to take some pictures of me fully decked out in my gear tomorrow. Now the world will witness for the first time the beginnings of my trail beard, not to mention the oozing machismo, animal masculinity and my beautiful Irish tenor voice (I guess that one wouldn't really come through in print, but take my word for it).

I'm going to be blogging for them as well, but just to make it easier for any new readers and for myself when I'm writing on the trail, both blogs are just going to have the same content. For now, I reposted my favorite entries from here and any fundraiser-related information.

Here is a link to the blog at DailyRecord.com. One thing that is different - I got to use a picture I took of a trail at the Delaware Water Gap last summer as the icon for my Daily Record blog.

But I guess it's not much of a difference as I can just show you them here. I've been wanting to use them somehow in some sort of thematic way, but I don't know anything about Web design, so this is as close as I'll come to that.

Mr. Snake

Mr. Lake - A group of Russian tourists were absolutely loving Mr. Lake. Also, there was a deer across the way but my camera wouldn't zoom in close enough.

Mr. Garden State

And again...

And again...

The 50th Time's the Charm

2008-04-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

Sweet, sweet Danica, my future wife, became the first woman to win an IndyCar race at the Japan Indy 300. I attribute it to her hard work and my constant encouragement via unreturned letters and emails, and lighting prayer candles at the Danica Patrick shrine in my closet.

Here's one of us hanging out at the beach together. Don't we look stunning?

Pizza Anyone?

2008-04-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

There was this homeless guy Hyrdafry that used to hang around Dover drinking a cup of nothing and claiming that he was responsible for the death of Biggie Smalls.

Hey, Hydrafry. Did you kill Biggie Smalls?
"Shit yeah! Notorious B.I.G.!"

I haven't seen him in a long time, but the last time I did, it's pretty much the way you want to remember a homeless guy. Okay, you'd rather the last time you see a homeless guy be at his housewarming party, but this wasn't so bad either.

I had just left some useless college-resume-building school activity with pizza and bagels that were going to be thrown out. I went with my high school ex Maggie to try to give it to a soup kitchen or someplace where it wouldn't go to waste, but we couldn't find anything that was open. The one church we went to was even closed. I didn't even know that could happen.

We were driving past JFK park and I look over and see Hydrafry sitting on a bench talking with some guy. I stop the car and get out and say I'm going to go over and see if they want the pizza and bagels. Maggie tells me not to and says they're going to attack me, but I bravely wander into the mouth of the beast where they remain seated and politely say "Sure" to my offer of food.

Hydrafry did not have a cup of nothing and was not speaking in tongues about dead rapper conspiracy theories. He seemed like his head was on straight for one time in the five or so times I ever actually spoke to him. It was a sunny day, shorts weather, Hydrafry had velcro shoes, food and a friend. For a homeless guy, not the worst situation. Then I never saw him again.

I remember three rumors about Hydrafry - 1) He killed Christopher Wallace, 2) He owned three or more houses, 3) He was homeless because he got messed up on acid and mushrooms and because of that, saying "Hydrafry" was a trigger that would make him start talking nonsense.

The first two...come on. But the third might not be so out of the question. Once my co-worker was in New York and had to go to the ATM to deposit a check. She gets to the bank and is about to go inside when she sees a bum laying on the floor with his ass half hanging out.

Not wanting to disturb the bum during his "activities," afraid he wasn't exactly the most stable minded of people, and not the least bit happy that the security guard normally on duty to prevent half-moon homeless guys from sleeping on bank property was absent, she flagged down a passing cop to kick the guy out.

Cop walks in. "Alright guy, let's move it...what the fuck?"

Bum grabs a nice oily slice of New York City pizza and slides it down into his dirty pants. Mmmm. Fromunda.

How the guy wasn't arrested, I don't know. The cop told him to clean up his mess and hit the road. He took that to mean fall all over the place while gathering his things.

While I was cracking up, my phone rings for an interview that I have no interest in conducting, thus partially ruining my enjoyment of the story. But I was chuckling to myself about it later when good old Mr. Fry popped back into my mind for the first time in I can't remember how long.

Unfortunately, I couldn't help thinking that even though he was sitting having a conversation with his fellow man of the street on a quiet park bench, acting the most normal that I had ever seen him, that I gave some pizza to a homeless man who claimed to have killed Biggie Smalls and enjoyed sipping air from a styrofoam cup.

Is it a stretch to picture Hydrafry's velcro shoes and crinkly butt cheeks on the floor in front of an ATM, laying half on top of an empty Dominos box? I guess not anymore.

Dear Inconsiderate Ladies

2008-04-07T07:15:00.000-07:00

If someone comes up to you in a bar and says hello, asks to buy you a drink, or just tries to strike up general conversation, don't say you're about to go with your friends to the club upstairs when you have every intention of remaining in the same spot for the next hour and a half to two hours. Just say you're not interested.

Now the other three girls, they just politely said "No" when asked to take part in the Brad Schmidt Experience. Their honesty was much appreciated after I finished shedding tears into my Coors Light in a dark corner.

Wouldn't You Watch This Show at Least Once?

2008-04-02T19:28:00.000-07:00

"Eat This Piece of Shit for $500"
...I think you could get one season out of it.

Autism Links of the Day (04.02.08)

2008-04-02T10:17:00.001-07:00

Just so I don't keep linking to CNN.com articles, they're running features every day for Autism Awareness Month. And after saying that, I'm going to link to one anyway. Jenny McCarthy claims that her son was able to recover much of his neurological function after treatments that included "a gluten-free, casein-free diet, vitamin supplementation, detox of metals, and anti-fungals for yeast overgrowth that plagued his intestines." I know it's easy to write this off as Tom Cruise craziness, but with autism, the medical community has just as little clue about how to treat autism as everyone else. So there could be something to it. Then again it could just be Tom Cruise craziness. Either way, nobody can be sure.

If I Only Had Super Powers
Thanks to 30 Minute Mommy for this link. A busy ass mom and speech therapist, who deals with autism on a regular basis. She's devoting most of her postings this month to autism. Give her a look. She says all the rain in the Pacific Northwest can get to her, so more readers might cheer her up.

Larry's Autism Lounge
A guy named Larry from Texas has Asperger's and this is his own personal page. He created it to try to give individuals with autism and their families a unique perspective on how to cope with the disease.

Autism Links of the Day (03.31.08)

2008-03-31T06:44:00.000-07:00

Here's a real good database of autism links from iReport, 11 pages worth. It's mostly blog features on people living with autism, but I always find those more interesting than the science-heavy stuff.

Toys R Us, Chevrolet, TJ Maxx, Modell's, Barnes & Noble, The Bachmann Company, Build-a-Bear and other companies are teaming with Autism Speaks to raise money during April which is Autism Awareness Month. Autism Speaks has information about the promotions at their website, but here's a press release for some general info.

David Savill, an English guy with Asperger's, created Naughty Auties, a virtual autism resource center in Second Life that they hope will help individuals with autism through virtual interaction.

Down the Hatch

2008-03-29T12:49:00.000-07:00

Just in case anyone didn't get the Facebook invite, I'm having a going away party April 12 at Down the Hatch in New York. It's $20 all-you-can-drink and free wings from 1:00pm-6:00pm. If you didn't get the invite and want to come just let me know.

I originally booked it for 7:00pm-10:00pm, but Down the Hatch's regular special is cheaper, goes for longer and you get free wings. All the more reason to show up.

We Watched the Ravens Find All the Eggs

2008-03-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

Easter Egg Hunt
One Easter I hid the colored hard-boiled eggs outside. James soon woke up and went searching for his Easter basket. He was busy examining its contents when a large black raven flew past the picture window with a brightly colored egg in its claws. Then another raven flew past. We stood at the window and watched the ravens find all the eggs.

- Crow
As the Crow Flies

We Have Liftoff

2008-03-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

My minions, we have our first donation courtesy of my good friend Matt.

Ladies, he's single and currently serving our country in the Sooner State. Wrangle this wild one if you dare.

First Grade Feeds the Hungry Thing

2008-03-25T19:07:00.000-07:00

Somehow I ended up with the only existing record of Mrs. Brandli's class' attempts to feed the Hungry Thing. Well for 1990 anyway. I'm sure this lesson was repeated until her retirement, but I can guarantee that all subsequent classes would be considered street trash in comparison with our glorious body of work.

If you're wondering (and I know you are), this is the Hungry Thing and he's resting on a set of sheets that were just changed for the first time in almost two months:

He's your average blue blob and of course, as all blue blobs are, he's a dead beat looking for a hand out. Worse, he's trying to take advantage of seven-year-olds and Mrs. Brandli is encouraging it.

Just look at his smug face:

What kind of blob gets to be 500 lbs. by being hungry? And on top of that, is hungry with a smile? The kind of blob that knows how to work the system for a hand out that isn't his.

But who am I kidding? I'm in favor of universal healthcare...and now we know why!

So, brainwashing adolescents with liberal propaganda aside, when the Hungry Thing came to Hillcrest Elementary School, he wanted one thing only. No foreplay, right to business. "Give me what's in your damn lunch boxes or I'm shoving my blue toes in your mouth!" Or at least that's what I would have said if I were a hungry blue beast with only 20 first graders and an senior citizen first grade teacher standing between me and piles of food.

But this Hungry Thing was nicer than me, so he showed up with a smile and politely said...actually he didn't say anything. Mrs. Brandli wrote that he just showed us his sign. Maybe blue blobs are genetically predisposed to vocal chord diseases.

So like good little boys and girls, we did all we could to please this stranger who was in need of our assistance. Everyone made something, and just in case he wasn't as nice as he seemed, we made him every kind of food imaginable. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, sides - he got it all. Carrots, ice cream, fish, pizza, cake, cupcakes, spinach, hot dogs and popcorn.

He also got some pudding on a nice red and black tablecloth,

a bowl full of eggs,

a peanut butter-less PB&J,

grenades and/or pineapples,

and a muffin holding a rifle and weeping into a puddle...I'm sorry, I read that wrong. This one's pancakes.

The kid that picked rice didn't really leave himself much to work with. He probably loved Uncle Ben's and asked his mom to make it every night, but I doubt he considered what a struggle it would be to adequately capture rice's image via crayon. He should have just left the page blank and said it was a close-up.

My personal favorite is the mix of blue and brown cookies. Shouldn't Nabisco have already come out with something like this? I'm betting they'd fly off the shelves.

There was also a writing aspect involved in feeding the Hungry Thing that went like this:

I'll feed him fryanide
Sounds like myanide
I mean cyanide

There was some purpose to it, but I can't figure out what it was. It sounds like a rhyming lesson, but aren't you past rhyming by first grade? Rhyming seems like a pre-school and kindergarten thing. Where's The Witch when you need her? She could help me out with this one.

The kid that made hot dogs originally tried to feed the Hungry Thing pot pogs and wot wogs. Still cracks me up to this day.

My entry was decidedly middle of the road. No bouillabaisse, no ratatouille, no sloppy joes. I went with your standard cereal. It gets the job done, but it's not very exciting. However, the Hungry Thing did get to eat using a massive black spoon out of a see-through bowl on a levitating table.

On second thought, I see some brown milk, so maybe I was thinking cocoa puffs. That doesn't make much sense though because I'm not a fan of cocoa puffs. We'll just say it is to snazz up my two-steps-up-from-bottom-of-the-barrel effort.

So finally, after 17 meals, the Hungry Thing decided that he'd had enough. He even got a stomachache according to Mrs. Brandli, but he didn't let it show as he smiled and wrote us a

You know, the Hungry Thing has got some pretty good dental hygiene for being in such desperate straits. Those are some awfully white teeth for someone who goes around begging first graders to cook for him.

Wait a minute. Wait a goddamn minute. Did anyone else see this? I just noticed it. Look at the chain holding up his sign. Solid gold. What a swindling bastard.

Try looking at his face now and see if you think it's grateful. His sign might as well say "You got took, bitches!"

I want my mereal back.

Thanks for the Advice

2008-03-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

"Brad, I know that you could physically go out tomorrow and run a marathon. But you'd be dead afterwards. That's what the hike is going to be like. I want you to put 40 pounds on your back and go out and hike 30 miles in a day. You could do it, but you're not going to be able to walk the next day."

I can safely say that after having started my practice hiking that the person who gave me that bit of wisdom is full of shit.

After two weeks of hiking at least once per day (minus the time in Vegas) with anywhere from 15 to 35 pounds on my back, I've come to the conclusion that anyone, regardless of how good or bad of shape they're in, can decide to pick up a bag and go out and hike. It might be a different story if you have a bad back, but that's really the only caveat I can think of.

The key is hiking your own pace. Out of all the advice and tips that I've read, that bit seems to be the most helpful. When you decide to do something that your body isn't ready or willing to do, that's when you get hurt. Hike too fast, you're going to get hurt. Don't rest enough, you're going to get hurt. Don't plan out your food and water breaks, you're going to get hurt. All it takes is listening to your body.

The problem for me is that walking is a slow process. It will get you where you need to go, but it takes forever. Yesterday I hiked just over five miles and it took me 2 1/2 hours. Running, will take you 35 and you can drive that in five, but then again, that's not the point.

Only now am I beginning to realize how antsy I am and that became very clear to me when I went on my first practice hike. I decided to take it easy and go for two miles or so in the morning before work. The whole thing took about 45 minutes and after I hit 20 minutes, I had this overwhelming feeling of "gotta go, gotta get there, gotta go go go go finish now!" And I felt myself walking faster and faster and had to consciously slow down, telling myself to relax two or three times.

That might be the biggest adjustment once I get out to California, having nothing but hiking on my schedule for 5-6 months straight. Whether it is or not, my day always feels filled with tasks to be completed. Gotta update my blog, gotta hike, gotta stretch, gotta go to Shop Rite, gotta get gas, gotta go hang out at someone's house, gotta do this and that and this and that.

They're tiny things that really mean nothing and aren't actually things-to-do that I've put down on a list. But I know they're out there and that at some point they've got to be done, so I begin thinking of all possible things combined into one giant whole of tasks-to-be-completed, I get overwhelmed and my ability to plan starts to shut down.

Once I'm on the trail, the only thing I have to worry about is getting to the next town, going the next 15-20 miles and that's about it. No job, no car, no places to be except heading northbound. There's going to be nothing driving me forward other than attempting to complete the trail. No need to rush, no need to get anything done, no items on a schedule to check off. Wake up, eat, hike, rest and eat, hike, stop for dinner, hike, sleep, repeat.

The other day I was struggling to get my water bottle out of the side pocket of my bag. I don't want to stop, but because the bag is strapped tight to me, I can get my fingertips on it, but can't reach far enough to grab a hold of it.

I'm fighting with it for about a quarter mile, I'm getting angry because I just want to drink some goddamn water but...this...fucking...bag...won't cooperate! So I prop the bag up on top of someone's fence, take it off and rip the water bottle out of the pocket. I sit there and drink for a minute or two, put the bottle back in the pocket, strap up and keep walking.

Then I think to myself, "Why didn't I just do that in the first place?" It was almost as if I was unconsciously listening to that 30 mile mandate, telling myself to keep walking when there was no reason I couldn't stop. There was nothing necessitating that I keep on walking, but I just felt like I had to, that I'd be wasting time if I had to stop and take off my bag.

Which brings me back to the point I started making a few paragraphs ago - you've got to hike your own hike. Once the bag was off, I calmed down, got some energy back from the water, gave my shoulders a break and felt refreshed. So now when I need a break, I take a break. If I want to stop and look around or just listen to the sounds in the woods, I do it. What's stopping me?

So in the unlikely event that you get the 2,650 mile itch, don't listen to the idiot that tells you to try a 30 mile day first to see if you can handle it. Go slow, do what your body tells you it can do, take a break every now and again, and don't curse...at...this...motherfucking...water bottle! It's only there to help.

Until Next Year

2008-03-21T22:27:00.000-07:00

He never dies, baby. He never dies. And nobody could ever figure out why, but I just discovered the reason a few hours ago after we got sent packing by the damn Sooners.

He loves to fly back to his nest, relax through the Spring, and then take all summer to figure out how best to get our hopes up in January and February and then how to smash them on the jagged rocks at the bottom of the Schuylkill in March.

But I guess we're guilty too because we keep coming back for more.

November '09 it starts all over again.

Let's go Saint Joe's *clap clap clap clap clap*

New Mommy Rant Redesign

2008-03-21T07:21:00.000-07:00

Our old friend 30 Minute Mommy had her site redesigned and it looks really good. Check it out. Not to mention you get to see pics of the cutest kid ever.

Autism Links of the Day
Something called sticky blood proteins have been linked to individuals with autism, but researchers aren't sure what, if anything, the body chemical has to do with autism.

The Joy of Autism - Blog of Estee Klar-Wolfond, writer, curator and founder of The Autism Acceptance Project.

Sorry, My Minions

2008-03-19T16:48:00.000-07:00

It's been over a week for the three of you reading out there, but pardonne moi for the lapse in communication. I was in Vegas for three days working and didn't really have a chance to update.

I know what you're thinking - "How is he going to update from the trail if he can't do it in Vegas for three days?" Well here's my response to that - Eat it. I was working all day and then went out afterwards. I didn't have the time and when I did have the time, I was in no shape to post anything coherent.

If you don't believe me, check out this picture:

I don't remember taking this at all. The weird part is I remember before getting on the elevator and then afterwards, but the elevator ride itself is lost in a black hole somewhere out in a faraway galaxy.

I distinctly remember the beforehand because I followed these two people down to the casino floor from the Voo Doo Lounge at the Rio. It sounds stalkerish but so what? There'd be no story otherwise.

When I saw them dancing together I couldn't believe what I was seeing. This woman was stunning, absolutely jaw dropping. I mean your mouth practically started watering at the sight of her. Amazing. The guy on the other hand was in possession of a pretty conspicuous comb over and an overly large brown suit. So when I saw these two leaving together I had half a seizure and barely recovered in time to make it down with them.

But once they get out of the elevator, they started taking their sweet old time and I had to stand around waiting for them to make their way down the escalator to the ground floor (the Voo Doo Lounge is on the roof of the Rio and the entrance to the elevator is on the second floor). So I bide my time and take some pictures of the slot machines

and a casino worker walking by.

I've been there before. I understand the hanging around, making small talk, desperately hoping something would come of all the build up during the night. Typically I was shot down and would wallow in self loathing and misery for many sleepless nights afterward. I'm sure my mere presence had a corrosive effect and rusted his chances from the inside out. He went down in flames. Got the "It was fun!" and a This Is the End of the Line hug. I was pained by sense memory watching that one.

So then we have the elevator blank spot. Probably brain damage from drinking.

And right after getting off the elevator:

Now this I remember because as soon as I was done snapping this one, I decided it was time to find Randy. The thing is, I don't know anyone named Randy. But pounding on doors and yelling for Randy to let you in will convince anyone that you do.

After the sixth or seventh time, my hand started to hurt. And I had made my way back to the group of doors where my room was anyway so I figured I would have the common courtesy not to wake up my immediate neighbors.

And the dirt bag that I am, I didn't take a shower when I woke up the next morning. I actually didn't shower for the final two days of the three that I was there. If you think about it that way, I did get one kind of hiking related activity in. So I say again - Eat it.

The Fall of Communism

2008-03-10T19:40:00.000-07:00

It being that Spring Break time of year, you can guess who's home this week, and knowing my nakedness theory, you know what there will be a lack of at the Schmidt residence during this second week of March. Or so I thought anyway.

I don't lock the bathroom door when I'm in there as I feel keeping an entire bathroom to myself when I'm only using it for one thing at a time is just a waste of resources. However, since no one else shares my philosophy, just my being in there is a de facto door locking. No one in my family sees eye to eye with me on this one.

I can see at least that no one wants to hang around brushing their teeth while you're taking a dump (yet no one in college had a problem as I recall), but if I'm in the shower, why not just come on in? There's complete separation via door or curtain. On top of that you've got a five to 10 minute window to accomplish your everyday bathroom tasks - brushing teeth, deodoranting, combing hair, cologning, adjusting your dentures, popping in your glass eye. Post-Mexican you might want to rethink your approach, but still, it's more than enough time to avoid witnessing a blood relative toweling those hard to reach spots.

So I continue to leave the door unlocked. Zach has come in a few times, but he still tells me that he's coming in. I won't be satisfied until someone walks in wordlessly, does their business whatever it may be and goes on their merry way (I think there's a good chance that last sentence will pop up in an X-rated Google search string in the near future).

That is until Dean walked into the unlocked bathroom while I was showering and stole all of my clothes, my towel and the floormat. He laughs and leaves, I say nothing, not wanting to give him the satisfaction but also figuring that he'll throw it all back in in a minute or so.

Minutes pass and the bathroom floor is still devoid. I figure he left it outside the door so I could grab it all without having to come out. Wrong again. I see my clothes on the couch and have to do a naked dash to grab the towel before anyone comes around the corner and sees me...except there's no towel in the pile. Bastard

Ironically, Dean's presence was now forcing me into nakedness in a house full of people. Go figure. I try to sneak into the other bathroom with the closet full of towels when my mom comes around the corner going for the same doorway.

"What are you doing?"
Dean stole my towel.
"I thought it was dirty and someone left it there so I put it downstairs." (Hands me a towel)
I need a floormat too. He stole everything.
(Laughing begins)

I tried to throw off the chains and all I got was laughed at for losing my towel. Sorry, Karl. Failed again.

I'm Excited for Old Age

2008-03-07T12:40:00.000-08:00

I typed patellar tendonitis into Google to get the official definition and the first result that came up was Jumper's Knee. Well then. Looks like I know how I aggravated it again. Box jumps, you will be the death of me. Jumping actually caused the condition to develop in the first place.

Freshman year of high school during the try-out-five-different-events-so-the-coaches-can-see-if-you're-good-at-anything-else stage of the track season, I decided to do the high jump and ended up being pretty good at it. I cleared 5' 8" and I think I medaled in the county freshman championships. Whatever happened, the future looked bright and I expected to clear 7' by the end of my senior year.

Fast forward to sophomore year and after increasing my personal best by an Olympian two inches, it became quite apparent that there was a direct correlation between the pain in my left knee and the amount of time spent Fosbury Flopping.

I left a visit with the good old physical therapist with a diagnosis of patellar tendonitis and a free pass to stop high jumping which I had come to hate. Of course I ignored the doctor's orders to stretch and do whatever he prescribed for me, but the pain went away because I wasn't jumping which was good enough for me.

La la la la, hoola hooping through life sans knee pain until BAM! I get sidelined during the early Spring track season of my freshman year of college. Four years later after a solid summer of training cross country training, I'm running around in the hills of Northern Maryland and BAM! I'm sidelined for a week and lose two to three weeks worth of fitness. Three years later training for a 2650 mile hike and BAM! wouldn't you know?

I should have known that box jumps wouldn't be any good for me, but when you ignore a doctor's orders on how to best heal your knee 11 years ago, you're not going to suddenly remember what he said when you're drawing up a new workout plan for yourself.

Oh well. (Knock on wood) Looks like I caught it pretty early and my new PT (who I will not ignore) said I should be fine if I lay off the jumping and running, do some stim and massage, and these exercises:

Either way, I'm glad I've been having knee issues since 14. That will make for some fun times at 60.

A Lesson in Accounting Grammar

2008-03-05T10:23:00.000-08:00

Read this passage my faithful readers:

A field in JDE now enables the receiver at the site to input a 'Receipt Date,' so even though the GL date is post-cutoff, this Receipt Date enables Carmen to pinpoint exactly which receipts, in particular the monetary value, that needs to be accrued for prior to cutoff.

I know what you're thinking. It should read "accounted for prior to cutoff." Oh ho ho would you be wrong!

What you'd never learn from your bad professors at Temple or in an accounting text book is that while "accounted" seems to be the correct term, the inventory quantities and monetary value has already been accounted for, based on the transaction in the G/L, which happens to be in the next fiscal year.

In the world of accrual accounting, dollars move around as if they had wings, and in this case, via a top-side booked accrual. Therefore, accrued and/or deferred are the correct terms.

And now, watch as my evil plan to turn an innocent kitten into an unstoppable terminator capable of laying waste to all of human civilization becomes reality!

It Tastes Like What?

2008-03-04T19:03:00.000-08:00

After I finished working out the other day, I made a protein drink, just the powder and milk. I don't like to get fancy. And it's not ridiculous bodybuilder protein mix either with human and sea lion breast milk mixed. Whatever the generic Vitamin Shoppe mix is, that's what I get.

Usually I pick up chocolate just because I can't picture vanilla or bananas and cream being any good. Powder in the glass, milk on top, stir stir stir, drink. This was no different than any other protein drinking day except for the fact that this particular drink was the most delicious drink I've had in years. It was like sucking from God's own chocolate protein shake teat.

This drink was even better than the one day at lunch in high school when I chased the Tuscan chocolate milk dragon and won. While drinking the first down, I openly declared it to be the best chocolate milk I had ever had and then, risking eternal disappointment and endless longing for the original taste of the brown bovine, I got up and spent another 60 cents (that sounds too high doesn't it?) and was rewarded for my boldness with another icy treat from the heavens.

I'm betting something is wrong with this batch of protein. Spiked with ephedra or something. How else could it taste so good? It's probably really just chocolate milk mix, but really good stuff from an artisan chocolate maker in Switzerland or Jersey City.

So as I'm slurping loudly on purpose for my own entertainment, I remember doing the same thing back when I first moved to Mine Hill, when our kitchen had Previous Owner disease and was a brown and orange dump with an island in the middle that made it almost impossible to move around with more than two people in there at a time.

One day I was making Nestle's Quik out of the metal tin with the circular cap on top. I could never get the spoon out without clanging it against the opening and knocking mix onto the top of the tin. Instead of pushing the mix back in, I'd just blow it off, thinking that no one would notice the accumulation of repeated mix scatterings. I seriously thought the mix would go away, like dissolve or evaporate.

My favorite thing to do after making the chocolate milk was to drink the first couple of sips with the spoon. It was only the first few because after that it feels like you're wasting your time and I was too impatient to be bothered with savoring.

As I do every day of my life, I was talking to myself, in this instance about how much I love chocolate milk, and in particular, how much I love drinking chocolate milk from a spoon.

"I love it because it tastes colder and more metalier!"

The exclamation point is warranted as there was genuine excitement. I wouldn't be surprised if the excitement also caused me to break into laughable dance as happens every day of my life.

It really does taste colder, though. And metalier.

Autism Links of the Day (03.04.08)

2008-03-04T18:28:00.000-08:00

Virtual Peers Help Autistic Children Learn
Justine Cassell, professor of communication studies and electrical engineering and computer science, and director of Northwestern’s Center for Technology and Social Behavior recently presented a preliminary study on her work with autism at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Using data collected from studying six children with high-functioning autism aged 7 to 11 as they engaged in play during an hour-long session with a real-life child, and with a virtual peer named Sam, they found that children with autism produced more and more “contingent” sentences when they spoke with the virtual peer, while their sentences did not become increasingly contingent when they were paired with the real-life children.

The Sibling Support Project
A national effort dedicated to the life-long concerns of brothers and sisters of people who have special health, developmental, or mental health concerns. One of their more well known educational activities is Sibshops.

Nationwide Children's Hospital's Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders.
In addition to more intensive efforts, they also offer workshops modeled after the Sibling Support Project.

My Autistic Boy and Other Adventures in Fatherhood
As you can tell from the title, this is not about an autistic girl and her mother's adventures.

What I Learned from the Last Half of Pee Wee's Big Adventure - Part II

2008-03-01T16:43:00.000-08:00

13) Favorite part I - Pee Wee getting sick of the hobo and throwing himself off the train. Sweet lord. Reporters claimed that when screening this scene, Dick Cheney snickered.

14) Who knew Pee Wee could be so inspirational?

Simone: Do you have any dreams?
Pee Wee: I'm all alone. I'm rolling a big doughnut and a snake wearing a vest...
S: No, not that kind of dream. I mean a dream you dream about all the time...and it keeps you going, dreaming about it...hoping it will come true. Do you ever have a dream like that?
P: To find my bike.
S: My dream is to live in the city of eternal love...Paris, France.
P: You'll get there, Simone.
S: I don't know.
P: Why not? What's stopping you?
S: Andy, for one.
P: Who's Andy?
S: My boyfriend. He's real jealous. He flunked French in high school and thinks that everything there is set up to make him look dumb.
P: I bet if he knew how important it is to you, he'd change his mind. Simone, this is your dream. You have to follow it.
S: I know you're right, but...
P: But what?
S: Everyone I know has a big "but."
P: Come on, Simone. Let's talk about your big "but."
S: I don't know.
P: You can't just wish and hope for something to come true. You have to make it happen.
S: I've been waiting for somebody to put it to me like that for so long.

Pee Wee, not only have you convinced a fictional 80's waitress to take up residence in Paris, but me to go on a cross country hike. Thank you, Mr. Herman. I've been waiting for somebody to put it to me like that for so long!

15) Tina the Alamo guide is, as I've mentioned, a baby vamp. However, her accent sounded so fake I thought it was a joke. But apparently she's from Georgia, so what do I know about southern accents?

16) And Pedro is working on an "adobe." Can you say that with me? Adobe.

17) Sometimes the best medicine is fake laughter:

We are now in the kitchen of the Alamo women. Here they are preparing culinary delights of the Southwest. Do I hear someone's stomach growling?

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

18) Pee Wee calls Dottie from a pay phone and asks her to wire him a bus ticket. This movie really is old.

19) If you end up with a case of temporary memory loss in Texas, just tell them you remember...the Alamo!...and you're in like a dirty shirt (Does the analogy make sense? Not much. I think I heard it somewhere. Maybe I made it up. Either way, I like it and I'm going to use it).

20) Pee Wee walks into the biker bar and no music is playing whatsoever. Give me a break.

21) Favorite part II:

Biker: I say we stomp him! Then we tattoo him! Then we hang him! And then we kill him!
Pee Wee: (throws voice) I say we let him go!
Entire gang: No!

22) A female biker grabs Pee Wee and says seductively, "I say you let me have him first."
8 year old me: "For what?"

23) The bar has neon signs for Michelob on Tap, Coors Light and some other beer that looked like Lorshs. Could have been Grolsch. I couldn't make it out.

24) Favorite part III - Laugh 1 - It is clearly not Pee Wee on the motorcycle; Laugh 2 - I become a giggling school girl when he crashes through the billboard.

25) Kids watching the clown dream sequence in the hospital are going to be freaked the F out. I remember hating this scene years ago and it's still weird and uncomfortable today. I don't have a problem with clowns, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were ruined for a lot of kids by that scene.

26) A Wayne Arnold sighting!

27) The head nun on the movie set...she's another looker. This movie's just full of them.

28) Pee Wee escapes with his bike and has his path blocked by a pink and blue elephant. I may be stating the obvious, but that reminds me of a joke. What do you kill a blue elephant with? A Blue Elephant Gun. What do you kill a pink elephant with? Hold its nose until it turns blue and shoot it with a Blue Elephant Gun.

29) A couple of short 80's shorts sightings.

30) When the Warner Bros. security guard on the bike rips off Pee Wee's fake bike handle, I always thought I would have been pissed because the new handle that pops out had no tassles on it. That leaves only one handle with tassles. The bike's all uneven now.

31) If you notice, there's a Wicked Witch homage in the music during the bike chase.

32) The Pee Wee chase interrupts a Twisted Sister video that looks like it was the inspiration for the Rock Band opening.

33) Pee Wee launches himself over a fence onto the roof of a house with the cheesiest set of rockets ever shown on film.

34) When Pee Wee frees the baby chickens from the pet store fire, one takes a tumble down the step outside of the door. Poor little chicken.

35) Again, this movie is much older than I remember. Absolutely awful police cars.

36) A super spy with a beard? This must be an 80's flick. Not to mention...

37) ...the fight scene where the ninjas steal the X-1. I know that this is supposed to be cheeseball, but what was it about the 70's and 80's that made choreographers unable to create realistic movie fight scenes? A prime example - watch the original Bourne Identity. I turn it on a few months ago expecting Matt Damon to shove a pen into the hand of a European secret agent who for some reason is fighting with a back pack on, and I get Richard Chamberlain running on a cloudy European beach being chased by children. Later on he demonstrates the fighting style of a right handed person trying to throw lefty for the first time. And I know flat tops were at one time a hair style of choice, but this scene can't only look ridiculous in hind sight. I picture the director yelling a disgusted "Cut!" after suffering through another drunken Richard Chamberlain lunge masquerading as a punch, then berating the executive producer for slashing the fight choreography budget at the last minute.

38) Any remakes of this movie are going to have to get up to speed with our current political enemies. Pee Wee originally blames the Soviets for stealing his bike. The infidel Canadians would now have to be responsible.

39) Phil Hartman makes a cameo (he helped write the script) and is basically just playing Troy McClure before anyone knew who Troy McClure was.

40) The movie ends with Dottie and Pee Wee together riding bikes. Dottie has two tiny dogs in a basket on the front of her bike. Tiny dogs used to be used as jokes in Pee Wee Herman movies. Now people have special purses to carry them around in at the mall.

41) As it turns out, I really only missed a few scenes. I guess I'm just used to movies being over two hours. Mr. Wee's Big Adventure is only 90 minutes, so it felt like I came in at the middle.

42) You stink!

What I Learned from the Last Half of Pee Wee's Big Adventure - Part I

2008-03-01T14:43:00.000-08:00

1) I always hated that guy who played Francis (Mark Holton). When I was a kid I probably just thought he was mean, now it's more likely because of his pale body and man boobs. Can't stand him. Just like the dad from Heavyweights (Tom McGowan). At least McGowan is from New Jersey. He's got that going for him.

2) Pee Wee is pretty damn funny. I laughed out loud a bunch of times, and they weren't "I haven't seen this in a long time and I've decided to sit through the whole thing so I might as well make it enjoyable" laughs. When Pee Wee is hitch hiking to San Antonio, and he's getting frustrated and bored, the scene cuts to him passed out laying halfway into the street - I genuinely cracked up.

3) Watching the cars go by during the hitch hiking scene made me realize that the movie is much older than I thought - 1985. I was thinking 1990-1992. It's older than both of my brothers.

4) It's funny watching kid movies as an adult because you pick up on little things. This, however, is not one of them. It can't be more obvious that Mickey (the guy who finally picks up Pee Wee) is an escaped violent criminal. He's wearing a prison uniform, he's wearing broken off hand cuffs, there's a police bulletin on the radio about an armed and dangerous escaped convict, Mickey at one point whips out a handgun, there's a police road block where they go through an entire sequence of tricking the cops into letting them go, and yet I still remember believing Mickey when he said he was wanted for cutting off one of the "do not remove" tags from a mattress.

5) What is Pee Wee wearing when he pretends to be Mickey's wife at the police road block? It's like a 1960's-refrigerator-green knitted wool poncho. Ridiculous.

6) Paul Reuben makes for a believable woman.

7) Another scene I laughed at: Pee Wee's driving at night and the road signs start getting out of control until finally boulders start crashing down all around them and Pee Wee drives off a cliff. They're saved by the retractable roof opening up into a parachute, letting them land safely. Comedy.

8) Large Marge utters the first line I remembered from memory - "It was the worst accident I ever seen." She then describes the sound of the accident as "a garbage truck dropped off the Empire State Building." Comedy.

9) Pee Wee sits down at the bar with the Large Marge shrine (it was her ghost after all if you don't remember, kids) and after he's finished eating, he realizes he's missing his wallet. Cut to Pee Wee washing dishes wearing a ridiculous hair net. Comedy. This scene also made me wonder what actually happens if you don't have the money to pay for your bill? I feel like they would just have you arrested or take your license or car keys and let you go to the ATM. I don't know about ATM availability in 1985 so maybe it was still the punishment of choice.

10) I forgot that a bunch of my early crushes were in this movie. Simone (Diane Salinger) the waitress, Dottie (Elizabeth Daily) and Tina the Alamo tour guide (Jan Hooks). Three hotties. Tres magnifique! Jan Hooks is still working for me, and although there's a good chance Dottie has had some, shall we say, plastic surgery, Liz is as well. Sadly, I can't say the same for Diane. Ahh, brings back memories of all my eighties celeb crushes - Kelly McGillis, Kelly LeBrock, Kerri Green (Andy in the Goonies - another Jerseyan, what what!), and Meg Ryan (the Top Gun and Innerspace era only).

11) The giant T-Rex where Pee Wee and Simone watch the sun rise is named Mr. Rex. His brother the Apatosaurus (if you call it a brontosaurus, paleontologists will beat you), is called Dinny the Dinosaur (pretty weak name if you ask me). They're now part of an intelligent design museum.

12) Examine this sequence: after avoiding a shower of boulders, Pee Wee drives off a cliff, only to be saved by a convertible top, then rides with a ghost in an 18 wheeler, watches the sun rise from the mouth of a T-Rex, gets chased by a Bluto-looking guy named Andy with a giant bone, hops into a freight train to escape, ends up getting laughed out of the Alamo because it doesn't have a basement, becomes a world-record-setting bull rider, temporarily loses his memory, is nearly killed in a biker bar but dances his way out of death to "Tequila," then is given a motorcycle which he doesn't know how to ride and proceeds to crash through a billboard. Pee Wee destroys Will Ferrell in the absurd comedy department. Better quality, much funnier.

Autism Links of the Day (03.01.2008)

2008-03-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

NJCOSAC Resources Page - A comprehensive database of information on a wide range of topics from legal services and healthcare professionals to resources "en español" and adult day and vocational programs.

Autism Speaks - A New York City-based advocacy organization, founded in February 2005 to improve public awareness about autism and to promote autism research.

Facing Autism in New Brunswick - Harold L Doherty founded this blog after his son's diagnosis and subsequent realization that "locally at least, no serious efforts were being made to improve the lives of persons with Autism or to address the realities of Autism Disorder."

National Autism Association - Seeks to educate and empower families affected by autism and other neurological disorders, while advocating on behalf of those who cannot fight for their own rights.

Autism Society of America - A grassroots autism organization that exists to improve the lives of all affected by autism by increasing public awareness about the day-to-day issues faced by people on the spectrum, advocating for appropriate services for individuals across the lifespan, and providing the latest information regarding treatment, education, research and advocacy.

National Autism Center - A new non-profit organization the Center advocates for evidence-based treatment approaches, identifies effective programming and shares practical information with families about how to respond to the challenges they face. The Center also conducts applied research as well as develops training and service models for practitioners. Finally, the Center works to shape public policy concerning ASD and its treatment through the development and dissemination of national standards of practice.

Autism National Committee (AUTCOM) - AUTCOM is dedicated to "Social Justice for All Citizens with Autism" and was founded in 1990 to protect and advance the human rights and civil rights of all persons with autism, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, and related differences of communication and behavior.

Autism Spectrum Disorders - The National Institute of Mental Health's complete Health & Outreach guide to autism features an explanation of ASD and their diagnosis; presents research into causes and treatment; and discusses adults with ASD.

New Mommy Rant

2008-03-01T09:13:00.000-08:00

I want to give a shout out to New Mommy Rant, the blog of someone I know that deals with becoming a new mother, the stress of daily life with a newborn to take care of, the constant concerns/worrying and some of the unexpected and funny situations you'll find yourself in each day. Here's some of my favorite stuff:

We were having a good ol' time doing Super Baby and then I felt something wet in my eye. Eliza is a drool queen so I figured it was just drool. The she started coughing and formula shot out of her nose and mouth. I am not sure how I could see this because I had a pool of vomit in my eye. GROSS! We ran to the bathroom and got cleaned up. Needless to say, that was the end of yoga for the day.

I don't know what happened to my placenta- and I don't care. haha I have seen people cook it on TV.

So check it out and thanks to 30 Minute Mommy, DH and Eliza for their support.

Who Does That?

2008-02-28T16:12:00.000-08:00

Apparently North Face.

I got a hat for the hike to sleep in and for cold weather, so as with all my equipment, I figure I'll give it a little test. I went skiing at Camelback last weekend, so that's as good of a place to go.

The hat was actually a little too good, which is an anomaly for me because I freeze swimming in 70 degree ocean water in the middle of July. I get out and shiver on the towel like an infant.

So I sweated in that thing for about seven or eight hours, and as I don't like to be considered a dirtbag, I decided to wash it when I got home. A regular old hat I think.

"Think again," says North Face.

And if you're having trouble reading that, here you go:

So now I need a new one.

Sons of bitches. Who makes a dry clean only hat?

Anyway, let's do some action shots in the tiny hat:

The Witch All Up in This

2008-02-26T19:22:00.000-08:00

The roads this blog will take me down. Check it out. I'm sitting on my porch the other day. I see little old Mrs. Richmond walking up the street. She's on her way to buy cans of tuna for her cats as usual. I wave, she waves, but then she makes a turn up the front walkway.

"How are you today, Bradley?"

She has one of those creaky old lady voices that takes a while to get to the end of a sentence.

"It's a little cold today, but the kitties are hungry so I need to get them some tuna. They love their tuna."

I figure she might need a ride being that it's a bit of a walk to the Mine Hill Market for an old lady, but she says she doesn't need one.

"When a woman turns 39 she needs to start thinking about keeping in better shape. So I'll walk."

I can tell she wants something, and all it takes to get her to tell her a story is to ask her what's new. She always has a story.

"Well, like I told you before, my granddaughter's not happy."

Like she told me before, her granddaughter is a teacher who isn't too happy with her job. She kind of hates it. So much so that she wants to write a book about it. But she figures she'll start small with a blog and go from there.

So until her blog is up and running, The Witch is going to spit some fire on that education game. But enough out of me. I'll let her tell her story:

I Have So Much to Say and Don't Know Where to Start
by The Witch…Brad’s favorite cousin (ok, so she's my cousin - I don't know any Mrs. Richmond)

Unlike my favorite cousin Brad….I HATE MY JOB! I sit here on my couch, my Bischonpoo acting as a heating pad up against my leg, shaking my head and laughing to myself because I, The Witch, can totally relate to Brad’s feeling of discomfort of being stuck in the same job position for the next 10, 20, or even 30 years down the road.

As a matter of fact, I just recently got a pension statement that showed I needed to work another 42 years before I could retire!!! I almost pooped my pants! How am I even going to make it until June? YUP! I am a teacher…an elementary school teacher.

Let me just get this off of my chest…IT IS TERRIBLE and that is putting it nicely! Unlike most holiday-sweater-wearing teachers that brag about how they taught a nose-picking child how to tie their shoelaces, I have found NOTHING rewarding about this profession. It has been nothing but a nightmare! I really do try and be positive about my job, but I seem to like my job for all the wrong reasons.

Here are some of the reasons I do like my job:

My 1/2 mile commute to work.
I can dress down whenever I want.
Being able to come home and share ridiculous stories from my school day with my family and laughing about it.
Today was “Inside Out Day” at my school. Of course, being the fun teacher that I am…I wore my track suit inside out. We were counting how many students in our class did. One girl, so innocently, told me she didn’t wear her clothes inside out because she didn’t have any inside out clothes….ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Yeah, it’s cute and funny, but COME ON! Even after an explanation to her about how you just have to turn the clothes that you already own inside out she responded by saying that she didn’t think her mom bought her any of those clothes. And yes, English is spoken at home.
We get unexpected days off (snow days, watermain breaks).
My favorite coffee joint is right on the way to work.
School lunches (yes….I admit….I love cafeteria food on pale yellow and green plastic trays….chicken nuggets are my fave!).
Free local newspaper near the sign-in book every morning.
Great stories from my students about “what really goes on at home."
And my grade level team members (without them, I probably would have quit last month).

I don’t believe that any of these reasons relate to educating children.

Now, don’t think I am this big slacker. I am a VERY hard worker. Since I began teaching over 4 years ago I have put 150% into the job everyday and probably have spent between $3,000-$4,000 on my classroom and supplies for extra fun crafts and activities.

I spend most nights and weekends planning interesting and engaging lessons that I know my students will enjoy…such as using real eggshells, vinegar, soda, and water (all items were purchased at my expense) to show how teeth rot if you don’t brush them. (It is AMAZING how many children admit to not brushing their teeth at least once a day).

And what have I gotten in return for all of my hard work, dedication, and money I have spent? NOTHING BUT GRIEF!!!!

Once I get my blogspot up and running (hopefully we have a snow day tomorrow…I will be wearing my pj’s inside out) I will let Brad know so he can put a link up. You can read all of my teaching HORROR stories, why the teaching profession is NOT WORTH joining, and my first blog will be sure to explain my blogging name The Witch.

Good Night J
--the witch

I'm In An Embarrassing Mood

2008-02-25T17:53:00.000-08:00

There was something wrong with the muffler strap on my dad's truck so he took it in to the dealership to get fixed. He wouldn't be able to make it over during the day to pay for it so he asked me to do it for him so he could pick it up later tonight. I figure later tonight means five or six, during normal business hours, so I leave the keys there figuring that he'd be dropped off and would just grab them then. Wrong on both accounts.

I get home and as it turns out, my dad was going to pick the truck up way late, like around midnight and would indeed need his keys. But like the loving, doting wife that she is, my mom decided that she would go pick it up so he wouldn't have to. After I got home from work she asked me if I would go with her ("After you eat we're going to pick up daddy's truck") and drive the truck home. After informing her that I did not have the keys because of a father-son miscommunication, she told me that she completely understood ("You're an idiot") and called my dad so that he too could join in on the understanding.

I really didn't feel like going out, especially not after having the molehill of an issue turn into a mountain of manure which was then dumped on me, but I am a loyal son (no rent payments) and agreed to help out anyway. I go outside, walk across the deck to the driveway, take a step to turn the corner right on top of a patch of ice. My right leg goes straight up into the air, my left arm drives into the ground and I perform a pathetic roll.

Motherly instinct: On
"Are you alright?"
"Yes."

Motherly instinct: Off
Cackles loudly.

Embarrassed, I get up and start running to my car.

Motherly instinct: On
"You didn't hurt yourself did you?"
"No, just my pride."

As I was driving home, keys in hand thanks to the showroom manager, I thought, "I'm in an embarrassing mood." Whenever this happens, I feel the need to tell the entire world whatever cringe-inducing event has just occurred in my life. I guess it's my way of getting over it. This makes two embarrassing falls in three days.

I went skiing at Camelback on Saturday and I'm standing in line at the lift, one of the next ones to go and wouldn't you know, I lose my balance, fall over backwards and almost poke my friend Kile's eye out with my ski. The entire line laughed at me, even more so as I tried to stand up and almost couldn't.

But I'm over those (well, almost - I'm still shaking my head over the Camelback fall), so in the true spirit of embarrassing mood story telling, I present to you a never-before-printed tale crafted in the early days after deciding I wanted to become a writer.

There is no title, or real distinction between characters, so without further ado, I present it here with disparaging comments:

"Gay."
"What's up, beach?" (Awful)
"Nothing. What's going on?"
"Nothing. So what do you want to do?"
"I don't know...I thought we were going to the park, douche."
"Alright, fine. I just wasn't sure if that's what you wanted to do. Do you really want to go?" (The conflict here is intense)
"Yeah. I got no problem with that."
"Alright, so where do you want to meet?"
"Ummm...I'll just come to your house, ok?"
"Yeah, fine. See you in a few."
"Peace, yo."

(Instead of describing the scene change, I wrote a squiggly line)

"Yo."
"Yo." (Hemingway-esque)
"So what's going on?"
"What are we gonna do?"
"I don't know. Let's explore."
"Sounds like a plan, dawg." (Cringing)
"I love coming to the park. It's so nice, well, as long as its not shitty weather." (How insightful)
"Yeah. I want to find something cool. Treasure chest...million bucks...one of the two."
"And what are you going to do with the money? Treasure's gay." (Head shaking)
"What!? You're telling me you wouldn't take some diamonds or a crown?"
"Alright, I would, but a million bucks is better." (A philosophical debate for the ages)
"You know what I think is gay as shit? Those people who say money has no real value. Like, that 'means of exchange' bullshit." (As you can tell, I was taking an intro poly sci class at the time)
"Yeah seriously. Would you take a million bottles of coke, or a million dollars?"
"But then they'd say, 'Oh, a million bottles of coke' just to spite me, or because a million bottles of soda is worth more." (Huh?)
"Well, technically a million bottles of soda is worth more."
"Depends on the brand."
"True."
"Say a million bottles of Coke. That's like $3.5 million dollars or some crap, depending on where you buy it. So we'll set the price at $1.50. So $1.5 million. And then those people will still insist, out of spite or stupidity that they'd take the Coke. So where would they use the Coke? Are they going to spend it at Wal-Mart? Shit no."
"And then Coke would be like, 'Where did you get a million Cokes?' You're under arrest."
"Exactly. Dumb f---s." (When trying to make a point, the f-bomb always works best)
"I hate stupid people." (Self-incrimination)
"Me too. But they make for good conversation."
"True."

I can't continue. It's too horrible. The rest is filled with curses and late 90's-early 00's pop culture references (India Arie as a sexual icon? What was I thinking?). I thought enough time had passed, but now I think that will only happen if I'm dead and I leave it in my will to one of my great grandkids to read on their 18th birthday with the requirement that they burn it immediately afterwards. Even then I'll probably look down from heaven to see myself being laughed at generations later and the embarrassment will have stretched into eternity.

They say sometimes its best to let sleeping dogs lie. This one should have been clubbed and thrown into the woods.

The First (Real) Post

2008-02-21T20:24:00.000-08:00

The hike is two and a half months away, but I've realized that sometimes I'm just not going to have much that's interesting to say about it.

Take today for instance...actually I did do one thing worthwhile regarding the hike, so my intro is useless. I set up a donations page through COSAC so you can make credit and debit donations online (http://njcosac.kintera.org/aamonth2008/hike4autism). I'm quite tech savvy.

So today was not one of the days that I described initially. Anyway, that intro was just a ploy to make a smooth transition into talking about something non-hike related, and as evidenced by that segue, there's more than one way to skin a cat.

I figure if you're going to be nice enough to spend the next seven or so months following along, we should get to know each other. And at the very least I should try to be somewhat entertaining, otherwise this would just become an embarrassment to be paraded around at family dinners and by my friends at the bar.

The keyboard to this computer is annoyingly loud for some reason. Normally I wouldn't think anything of it, but my brother is home from school tonight. He's going for his physical fitness test for the police academy tomorrow morning and he went to sleep since he's got to wake up early for it.

He left the door to his room open and I could hear him snoring, but these firecracker keys must have woken him up because he got up a while ago to close it. I kept insisting earlier today that he was going to fail, but after that the thought of it drifted out of my head and only came back when I heard him shut the door.

I felt bad and have sort of been trying to keep quiet, but I can't help Gateway's crap-ass keyboard construction methods. Anyway, the point is I wouldn't normally think of the loudness of the keyboard because no one's usually here to wake up with it. So now that he's here, there's just no more walking around naked.

The beauty of living close to work is that I'm the last one to leave the house in the morning. I wake up to an empty house, exercise, eat breakfast and get ready for work in an unfettered environment, and for me the term unfettered almost invariably means no clothing.

When nobody's home, there's no carrying a wet towel around and forgetting it on your bed leaving a big wet spot. If I want to watch highlights on ESPN, but don't feel like going upstairs to get changed first, I'm free to do that too. YAHTZEE!! All your clean underwear down in the basement? No need to throw on a pair of shorts just to walk through the dining room and kitchen without offending someone.

Now my routine has been messed with. If my brother's home possibly lurking around a corner trying to scare me, then I'm not so keen on it. Plus being naked is more of a solitary thing for me anyway.

Luckily, it's not a winter or summer break situation. Then all bets are off. I could go weeks at a time without having an opportunity. Not to mention he eats all the damn Chips Ahoy in about two days. So few cookies, no nakedness. It's not a fun situation.

I've read that you can go entire days at a stretch without seeing anyone on the PCT, so it got me thinking...But then I realized the sun's a factor and I wouldn't want any issues there. You've got spiders and scorpions too (don't want to think about that). But the one thing I'd be afraid of is tripping and falling. Doing it in clothes is one thing, but it can't feel good when you're au naturale. Then if you hurt yourself, you're going to be sprawled out waiting (could be a while) for someone to come around the bend... and then what do you say when they find you?

I don't know, but it would certainly make for a good entry.

How to Donate

2008-02-21T20:00:00.001-08:00

Option 1 - Click here to donate by credit or debit card.

Option 2 - Download a printable donation form and send to:

COSAC
Attn: HIKE
1450 Parkside Avenue, Suite 22
Ewing, NJ 08638

COSAC requests that you write "HIKE" in the memo line of your check so they know to attribute it to Hike4Autism.

Donate any amount you'd like. I'm happy to have you participate at any level. But if you're still wondering what a good suggested donation is, how about going by mile or state? Here's an easy list to work with:

1/2 cent per mile - $13.25	Oregon - $450.00
1 cent per mile - $26.50	Washington - $500.00
2 cents per mile - $53.00	California - $1700.00
5 cents per mile - $132.50	Pacific Crest Trail - $2650.00

10 cents per mile - $265.00

25 cents per mile - $662.50

50 cents per mile - $1325.00

All donations are tax deductible. For more information on tax deductions and COSAC, visit their Make a Donation page.

You're a Damn Liar!

2008-02-20T17:37:00.000-08:00

There might be a few of you out there that read my first post and were like, "Whoa whoa whoa. This guy's talking about changing his life and wanting to do something big before he chains himself to a desk forever but his blog is named Hike4Autism. He's messing with my head and I don't like it!"

Actually, nobody has said that because at this point, nobody knows that the site is here. I figure I'll make a few posts before I tell anyone about it, that way when people do start coming (knock on wood) they have a few things to get them hooked (knock on wood) instead of seeing one post and thinking, "Only one? That's bush league." And then leaving never to return.

So, if you did have some form of conflict resembling the one described above, then let me do a little clarification. I am hiking to go away and have some adventure and get some clarity. But, in the course of planning it out and thinking it over, I figured that just going was a little selfish. Maybe selfish is the wrong word. I felt that if I was going to go and keep a blog so people could read about my trip and follow me as I go, why wouldn't I use that to do something for people in need? Hence the title - Hike4Autism.

Why autism, you ask? The simple answer is that I kind of just picked it. The longer answer...well it's just a little longer. Sometimes it seems like everyone either knows someone with autism, or knows of someone with autism. It seems to affect so many individuals in so many ways, and yet nobody can say with any type of certainty why it afflicts people in the first place. So I think that deserves some attention and I hope that this blog can bring a bit to it.

My goal is to raise $5,000 by the time I return home in October, so let's see if we can make it happen. Don't make me look bad!

Time to Get Started

2008-02-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

Last March I was sitting at work doing exactly what I'm doing right now at home, only it was a lot more depressing. It was a March day, which I'm sure was overcast and horrible, but I wouldn't have known because I was sitting in a windowless cubicle in a windowless office. As I stare into Outlook, a small blue box in the lower right corner of my screen informs me that another press release has found its way into my inbox. This one, like all the others, touts the industry's leading product from the industry's leading company. My eyes glaze over and a thought crosses my mind.

"This is the rest of your life."

Sure, it's not the major leagues like I had once hoped, but I'm doing what I've wanted to do for a long time. I'm making my living from writing and enjoying it. But still, I figured there had to be something more to it than that. But then again, maybe there wasn't. I'm sure nobody grows up wanting to sit at a desk for the rest of their lives or working out in the cold, but the world has jobs and they need to be filled. It wasn't even the job. I love writing. It was more the lack of glamor to it.

It's probably just my tendency to romanticize everything, but I guess I always expected more excitement from a job. Every job I thought could be exciting. You're a cop, you bust drug dealers. You're a writer, you're investigating. You're a repairman and house wives greet you at the door in bath robes and little else. You own a convenience store, you get robbed a few times and make it onto Cops, America's Stupidest Criminals or at the very least break.com. Whatever a job was, I could always picture myself doing it because I injected far more excitement into it than most likely would ever be found in the real world. I guess you could say that after 9 months on the job, I had officially realized that work is a boring thing and that my mom's "Work sucked" responses to my adolescent queries about her day were not simply the result of a bad day at the office.

But it was more than that. Thinking of myself in the same position 10, 20, 30 years down the road was not exactly comforting. What will I have done by then? What will I have seen? What will I look back on? I felt a general dissatisfaction about not having done anything worthwhile, about not having done that one big thing that defines a part of your life. And it's not like I don't have ideas. I daydream all the time about the green grass on the other side and it might be while I'm talking to you. You never know what's going on in my head. This week alone I've thought out what my life would be like as a ski instructor, a band manager, living on a deserted island, what I would do if I won the lottery, living alone in a cabin in the woods somewhere, being a landlord, being an actor, being a screenwriter, being a teacher, being a brewmaster. The list goes on.

That week I'm sure I thought about those very same things, probably right up to the moment when I received an email from my friend Joe asking me if I could take a year off from everything for a trip that would put life in perspective. And that is how I have arrived at this point, writing in a blog getting ready to hike 2600 miles from Mexico to Canada. I didn't make the decision right then and there of course, but the email planted the seed. And it really wasn't just the idea of a hike, but knowing that wherever we went, when we came back, life would be in perspective.

I'm restless and have been so for quite a bit of time. I've felt like there's something out there for me that I need to do before I can settle down and be happy with the direction in which my life is headed. So something like a big trip where I'd see things that I never have before, where I'd test myself physically and mentally sounded like just the thing. Originally the plan was to put our lives on hold for a year and hike from Alaska to San Diego. Now, if you're thinking that that doesn't sound practical at all, you're right. We have few if any survival skills and quickly realized that the Alaskan wilderness would laugh at us and kill us immediately for trying to travel through without experience. So that idea fell through and changed to a hike across the middle of Canada to backpacking through Europe to a long road trip before finally being relegated to the extremely large pile of failed ideas that has built up over the course of my life.

A few months passed and after going back and forth about whether or not it was a good thing that the idea had died, I started searching around the Internet for long trails in the United States and I came across the Pacific Crest Trail. But I'll spare you the flowery descriptions of deserts, mountains and flesh eating bears. You start in Campo, Calif., walk for five months through California, Oregon and Washington and end up in Manning Park in British Columbia. So it's not Alaska to San Diego, but it was close enough for me.

And that was pretty much it. Once I did a little research and found out that there were people who've hiked it numerous times, that a few dozen hike the entire thing every year and that there were more than enough how-to guides to help me get out onto the trail, I decided to go for it.

I say it was that simply, but who am I kidding? I needed words of encouragement on multiple occasions to get myself to commit to the decision and had more than a few sleepless nights agonizing over whether the trip could really happen, whether it really even should happen in the first place.

After a while, though, that feeling just passed, probably because I did something I don't do as often as I should. I always get caught up in things, some idea that sounds like the best thing in the world, something shiny sitting on a pedestal that I have to have now now now and before I know it I own an orange 1981 Toyota Celica and can't stop wondering what it was I was so excited about.

But this one I thought over...and over and over and over. I went back and forth, double and triple checked the list, took a couple deep breaths and eventually I decided that things were going to be alright. Still, I have absolutely zero idea whether anything is going to work out, but I'm content with the decision at least. Then again, I've had this feeling before, but let's just hope all my planning makes the ending a bit different.

So that's why I'm hiking. It's not because I hate work, my cubicle or the idea of being at a desk writing in 30 years (my cubicle actually is gray, but it's really not that bad and it's surrounded by nice people), just that before I get there I want to have done something worthwhile along the way, and the hike is it.

Mile one begins in two and a half months.