All Entries in the "Travel" Category
Planning My Own Walk in the Woods
I re-kindled my love of camping in 1993. I was in the Oklahoma Army National Guard, and we were doing our annual two-week training/summer camp. That year, instead of setting up the usual big-ass tent that could house my entire platoon with our cots and all of our gear, we bivouacked, which is basically forced camping. One evening, I was sitting on the ground outside of my pup tent and reading a book, and thought that some coffee would be good. I looked through some MRE packets and found packets of instant coffee, sugar, and cocoa mix. Meal, Ready-to-Eat (MRE) packets are widely despised except by me and 3 other people in the world. When some of my army friends walked by my tent, and asked what the hell I was doing, I would tell them. They were all skeptical of the idea of an MRE mocha, but after one sip, they were hooked. By the time the sun had gone down, there were 4 or 5 people sitting around my canteen stove, drinking coffee and talking about whatever. It was great.
A couple of friends and I liked it so much, we went camping a few weeks later, and that was it. No army uniforms, roomier tents, and a huge crackling fire. No phones, no work, no noise. (To this day, whenever I claim a campsite for the weekend, I feel like a big weight has been taken off my shoulders. Cindy feels it, too.)
Anyway, we would go on small hikes during these camping weekends, and we started thinking about doing longer ones. When you start thinking about stuff like that, sooner or later you hear about the Appalachian Trail, a 2,200-mile footpath from Georgia to Maine. The AT is like Route 66 for hikers. It would take lots of time and money to hike the AT, and if I ever had plenty of one, I had none of the other. So, I put it off.
It’s been 15 years since I first started talking about hiking the Appalachian Trail. I still haven’t done it, but I still talk about it a dozen times a year. A few years ago, I read A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
Case in point: A couple of months ago, Cindy and I were sitting on the couch, and she was reading Bryson’s book, and after reading a section about bear attacks and missing hikers, she looked up and said, “And you want to do this?!” and proceeds to read aloud the section about bear attacks and missing hikers. “Are you crazy?”
“Well, I don’t want to do that part,” I said.
I still don’t have the time or money to thru-hike the AT, but that’s okay. I don’t really have the body for it anymore for it either. I think I would be satisfied with just spending 4 to 7 days on the trail, a section of it that’s not too harsh. I want to enjoy the experience, after all.
It’s on the list for 2010.
So, I have already taken steps toward making that a reality this year. I’ll keep you updated when everything starts coming together. I can’t say much right now because I have two friends that are going and it all requires some co-ordination.
We’re In The Club Now
I took the idea of the grape soda Ellie Badge (if you’ve seen Up, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t seen Up, go see it…take tissue) and changed it to better suit me and Cindy. I think Moxie is more fitting for us. Not only is it one of our favorite drinks of all-time, but it’s a quality we strive to bolster within ourselves.
And we’re going to need a lot of it to get us through the next couple of years 
Something Resembling Normalcy
My dad is now off many of the machines and tubes. The ICU staff had tilted the bed more upright and turned it toward the TV because he’s been awake for most of today. He’d nod off for a few minutes every 30 minutes or so, but it’s leaps and bounds ahead of where he was yesterday. The doctor’s are talking about moving him to long-term care soon. And while I’m not thrilled about the idea of him having to stay in the hospital in “long-term” care, I know this means that they feel he’s stable. His color is good, and I hate to say this, but he hasn’t looked this healthy in a long time.
Things are going well enough that my mom told me yesterday that Cindy and I should still go to Seattle…and she meant it, so we’ll be off to the Pacific Northwest one week from today.
Pete, you better have a drink ready for me. A big one. I’m going to need it.
Blank On Demand
You know how a baby just babbles away at nothing, but then when you call someone up and tell the baby to “talk to so-and-so” it clams up, only to become an instant motor mouth the second you hang up?
Or when people who think you’re funny tell other people how funny you are, so when they introduce you to this new person, they say something like “This is the guy I was telling you about. He’s reeeeaallly funny! Say something funny.” And then you just stand there not saying anything because you don’t think “You are such a fucking moron” is as funny as it is true.
I bring this up because I’ll be doing a fairly long drive from Tulsa to Rawlins, Wyoming, later today. These drives can get tiresome, especially when there isn’t a CD player in the truck, or when 9 out of 10 radio stations are God stations (I’m looking at you, Kansas) and the other one is hate radio. With nothing to do but drive, my mind wanders a bit and sometimes I come up with good ideas that I later forget because I can’t write them down while driving.
So, for this trip I got a digital voice recorder to capture those ideas (and to keep me entertained) on the long drive.
What I fear is that now that I have the recorder, my brain will freeze up, and the only thing that I’ll record is me saying something like “Uhh…er, umm….crap!”
