2300 miles

2300 miles is a long way to travel. A trip to Glacier National Park requires proper planning.

Last year I was fortunate enough to have logged 105 miles, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. Some of the longer hikes are only 14 or 15 miles round trip.

I’d like to hit the century mark again this year. I spent a good amount of time looking at the calendar, where we would be staying each night, the mileage for each hike and created an itinerary.

When I was leaving work today I saw something that caught my eye. The words jumped at me from the page an open magazine “go where your routine can’t take you.”

So I came back home and started rethinking...Scenic Point, Cracker Lake, Firebrand Pass...this trip is going to be a little bit different. 

Stay tuned...

pain cave

there was too much sadness tonight so i left to go for a walk, but when i returned they were still talking about it. “i just lost my appetite” were the words i heard as i walked in the door.

i guess that is the way they deal with it. personally, i don’t see how it could make things any better. 

attempts to get a concrete response to any question that i ask have proved useless, so i stopped asking. there is still so much up in the air, so many unknowns. 

i guess that this is the way that i deal with it. this is such an isolating experience for me that sometimes i feel like my thoughts are all i have...and i never imagined that this is where they would materialize, but here they are...merely a whisper, when all i really want to do is yell.

blurry lines

the thing that sucks about being a grown up is that sometimes you have to bite your tongue when you really want to tell someone how it is

that you have to turn the other cheek when you really want to lash out

that you have to stay and endure the pain instead of just walking away

similar scenario, different response

you learn from your mistakes

sunset ii

I’m a morning person. It hasn’t always been that way. Maybe it started in college with early morning crew practice. 

I probably do more before 9am than most people do all day. I rarely sleep in. I never hit snooze.  

One of the things I take the greatest pleasure in is my morning bike commute to work. There is peace in the stillness. Sometimes, the only thing I can hear is my own breath. 

For as much as I enjoy the morning, I’ve never taken much interest in the sunrise. It just sort of happens while I am busy doing other things. 

On the other hand, sunset has a significant meaning to me. It began 2009 with a note from a friend (who has since passed away) that was written on a card with a picture of the sunset. 

It wasn’t just any sunset, it was a special sunset. It belonged to her friend’s father. 

Since then, I have never seen sunsets in the same way. I view them with purpose. There is sadness and beauty at the end of the day. The dichotomy suits me well.

Pemi Loop: lost and found

When I got to the car I couldn’t find my wallet.

For two days on the trail I had a lingering feeling that I had lost it. I couldn’t remember putting it my pack or in the console of the car. It wasn’t in my bags or under the seat. The last time I had it was when I went to the pay station to fill out the hang tag for parking. I must have placed it on top of the pay station when I was filling out the envelope and left it there.

It was around 7pm. The visitors center was closed. I was in Lincoln, NH, over 400 miles away from home with no money and not enough gas to make it home. The only food I had was a banana that had been sitting in the car for two days.

There was no cell phone reception in the parking lot. I drove down the road to the town of Lincoln and made a few phone calls that yielded me with a place to stay, a western union money transfer and an offer to fill my tank with gas and spot me some cash.

Things were looking up. 

About an hour later I am on 91 South (with cell phone service) and my emails come through. There is one from American Express about my recent call. I called customer service and explained my situation. They accessed my account and pulled up a note, which instructed me to call this number XXX-XXX-XXXX. I hung up and dialed. It was the Lincoln Police Department. The woman I spoke with said that someone had found my wallet and turned it in.

The good news was that they had my wallet.

The bad news was that I had to drive an hour back to Lincoln to pick it up.

This is the second time in a week that I have lost my wallet and had it returned to me. I decided that it’s a good idea to stop carrying cash...an even better idea would be to stop losing my wallet.

three simple phrases

I haven’t always done the best job at communicating with the people in my life that I care about...but, I have learned some valuable lessons along the way that have helped me fine tune my skills. 

One experience involved watching my aunt interact with my mom-mom in the final months of her life. It was too little, too late...nothing can make up for years of indifference. The other is the journey with my brother that my family has been on for the past four years. 

It started with learning how to say “I love you.” Since then, I’ve learned the importance of three simple phrases. 

It is for this reason I will always say...
“I am sorry” when I am wrong
“Thank you” when I appreciate you
“I love you” and mean it 

I don’t always live life to the fullest, but I do my best to make sure that I live it without regret.

at arm's length

most people keep the world at arm’s length

comfortable

disconnected

it’s like they are holding a snow globe in their hands

mine contains a landscape that has been evolving for the past four years. i shake it from time to time and it churns things up, but they always settle to the bottom. 

it is not a scene that i wanted to become familiar with, but now i have no choice.

while many of you are busy being immersed in your next distraction, i am slowly conceding to that fact that this is the way it will be.

even keel

One of my clients asked me if I was excited about my upcoming vacation to Montana. 

“Not really,” I replied. 
To which she questioned, “Does anything excite you?” 
Again...”Not really” I replied, “I guess I just don’t see the point in getting excited.” 
“Life is all about the hills and the valleys, the highs and the lows,” she said. 

I prefer to stay on an even keel. If you never experience the highs then the lows won’t feel as low. 

Maybe it’s a method of self-preservation; reflective of where I am right now in my life...or maybe I’ve just been on enough roller coasters.

Pemi Loop: trail magic

Trail Magic, defined as an unexpected act of kindness, is a quintessential part of the Appalachian Trail experience for many long-distance hikers.

Heading up the Osseo trail I passed a hiker and said hello. Just after Liberty I passed him again, heading the opposite way. One of us must have gotten turned around. He went up onto the ridge to orient himself. I continued on (thankfully, not far) until I saw something on the ground that I recognized (a hair tie), quickly turned around and hauled ass to catch him.

I didn’t ask his name, but I nicknamed him Sven. He is an infectious disease specialist from Portland, Maine and he kept me company from Liberty to Lafayette. Nice guy that he was, he let me lead and set the pace.

The next day, I saw two women sitting on what appeared to be the trail, just past the Garfield Ridge Campsite. I called out to confirm that I was headed in the right direction. They said they were unsure, but had sent a “scout” down to check it out. I waited with them until I saw someone coming back up the trail...it was Sven! 

I met a few hikers on Friday morning at Garfield. They were backpacking and headed toward Galehead.  Shortly after, I discovered that my camera was gone. The last time I had used it was on Garfield. Oh well, I thought, pictures are overrated…the experience is what really matters. I dropped my pack at Galehead and took a short walk out to the peak. Upon my return I met one of the guys from Garfield. “You don’t take breaks, do you?”  He said he had been chasing to catch up with me and that he had my camera.

Two women passed me near the end of my hike (AKA I still had six miles to go but didn’t know it). They were way too cheerful and I was running out of steam. A while later, I caught them taking a break at a stream. They informed me that I still had three miles to go and offered me a bag of “Finding Dory” graham crackers, which were the best things I ate all day.

Some people will call it "coincidence." 
I call it magic.

The Tumbleweave Diaries

Cornucopia of Goodness...

My reward for going into the office today.