The Epic October Road Trip:

I hit the ROAD tomorrow. And so it begins a month long adventure to visit as many long lost friends and pick up as much of my stuff as possible before moving back to Nevada for the winter and spring. It's going to be a lot of driving. It's going to be a lot of fossil fuels. It's going to be a lot of coffee. But- I'm pretty excited about it anyways- people to see, things to do, etc...

So here's the plan:

Sept 28- arrive in Boulder for the evening 29- Visit j-school, hang out with Hillary, 30/Oct 1- Drive to St. Louis Oct. 2- Hang out with Ande, drive late to Inde 3-Visit Cox, drive late to Louisville 4/5 Nat- want to go hiking?? Oct 6- drive to Delaware 7-10 central ohio Oct 11- drive to Kent for dinner 12-14 Pittsburgh (visit ultimate tournament in Edinboro?) 15- Drive to NYC/16-19 NYC (visit columbia j-school, maggie, amal, kara?) 20 NYC to Virginia 21-23 Richmond/Norfolk/Williamsburg 24-26 Homecoming at W&M (you should be there too!!) 27-28 South Carolina- Lauren where exactly do you live??? Oct 29 + drive across I-40 to Vegas- maybe couch crashing in Memphis and New Mexico???

I should arrive in Boulder City by Nov. 1st with my bike, my dishes and sheets, my books, and hopefully I'll have found an apartment by then, if not, there's always my trusted tent for a little while longer... I'll try to keep this blog posted on my cross country progress. Just put a new battery in the honda, so we should be ready to roll!!

Desert Nights

Notes from my nights in Cottonwood Canyon, September 19th-21st

The best part of life in the desert is the evenings. No one will disagree with this. In the setting sun, the canyons glow, the harsh heat fades, the cylidropuntia's spines shine and sparkle, and the growing shadows give everything an air of mystery.

You put your pack down. You take your boots off. Rinse your face and hands. Cook some dinner. Eat and chat with your coworkers. The best of life's simple pleasures. Easier to appreciate in a place where simple is all you've got.

The stars and the bats come out one by one, slowly at first, but increasing along an seemingly exponential curve so that soon, you have no chance of keeping count. Grasshoppers, cicadas, screech owls, and coyotes (1) all contribute to the night's songs. On this lucky evening, the rare burbling of a little brook (2). It's a rhythm you almost feel more than you hear, lulling you toward well earned sleep.

Some people put up tents. I prefer to sleep out, watch the stars until my determined brain finally gives up. I sleep well out here, a cool, clean night breeze (3) over a tired body, the soul distracted by world class star gazing. I haven't yet woken up with a tarantula on my face or a scorpion in my hair, although I've heard such stories, so I guess I'll keep sleeping out until I do.

As much as I love these nights, just perfectly cold to curl up in my bag but not yet enough to wake up and find myself frosted over, I can never enjoy the for long. After a twelve our day over rock scree and under scorched junipers, I hardly make it past 8:30. Too many lonely moths flock toward my headlamp, for their sake, and mine, I always give up on my book quickly. Or this essay. Goodnight. Those little scorpians can wait until first light (4)...

PS- Excuse my rampant poetic licence. 1. Also this evening we were serenaded by the lovely roar of fighter-jet flyover. 2. This little desert stream is surrounded by cow shit, as are most of them. 3. Thank goodness it's just a light breeze, or I'd be coated and choking on dust and dried cow-shit. 4. Cooking breakfast by headlamp before our 6 am return to work, I did find two little guys climbing around my stove as I made our grits.

PPS- My nights in the desert, at least for this season, are finished. That's my emotional excuse for the poetic licence, forgive me. Another job over, another round of sentimental goodbyes at hand, to friends, to mountains, and to perfect desert nights.

Just a little masochistic

From the tent-log, July 5th, 2008, Middle Moose Creek, Denali NP.

Sometimes, it's obviously worth it. When the freezing rain lifts and you see those first glowing rays of sunlight over the mountain you've been trudging up. When you stand triumphant at the peak, catch a glimpse of a mama grizzly and cubs in a berry patch, or realize that you can see for miles and there's not another soul to be found, it's worth it.

But let's be honest- sometimes it is not all fun and games on our outdoor adventures. Rain, mosquitoes, blistered feet, heavy packs, and endless uphill bushwhacking- frankly, it can get pretty misreable. Usually, it's worth it in the end.

Sometimes, however, it's not. Sometimes, it's just a test of endurance for the sake of testing your endurance. Here, in the shadow of Denali (A pretty good looking shadow, I have to admit) I think of the mountaineers testing there endurance up there- freezing temperatures, heavy loads, and days of waiting for the perfect, storm free conditions to attempt the final ascent, to achieve for a few moments the triumph of standing on North America's highest peak. But then, it gets cold really fast up there at 20,320 ft, so you can't stay long. They hurry on down. The accomplishment, the impressive part, is more from the process than the peak, more endurance than excitement.

Down here, I'm testing my endurance in other ways- like mosquito misery. Why do I keep hiking every day- hating the bugs, the bushwacking, the boredom? Well yes- they pay me. But they pay the guys who wash the tour buses a lot better, and yet, here I am. Why? It's not the scenery keeping me here- views of the stunted black spruce tundra through a dark mosquito haze can be a little lacking on poetic inspriation. It's not the salary.

It's sheer stubborness. I'm not going to quit, mostly because I want to. I need to prove that I can handle ten days in a headnet, purposefully dehydrated because everytime I take my pants off to pee I get enough bites that my eyes tear up, trudging through wet, unfriendly terrian, where the best thing to look forward to every day is smashing that last mosquito into a bloody smear on the side of my tent so I can hope for some sleep in peace.

My coworkers have commented that it's a lot like hell around here. Yet, we are still here. There's a fine line between outdoor adventure and masochism sometimes, and I think we've crossed it. And it's not just us exhusted, itchy botanists. Adventurers in every category are pushing their limits- how high, how cold, how many days on only couscous, how many bites to the ass can we handle? Before what? Before we give up and cry, and press that magic escape button? Not likely, we push ourselves until proving it is the only option. Stopping to cry only leads to a larger swarm of bugs- it's keep moving or die like a sick caribou, unconcious from blood loss to the bugs out here in a day or two.

I'm not trying to say that surviving 10 mosquitoey, misreable days in Denali's less famous lowlands ranks with climbing it's peaks, or any of the other incredible feats that endurance junkies push towards. But it is pushing through the misery without the summit or the scenery, no 'it's all worthwile' moment. It's not logical really, to make yourself misreable, unless misery in some messed up way, gets you off too. Diagnosis- masochism.

I am not diagnosing myself alone. I'm diagnosing this club of "higher, faster, tougher" adreneline-addicted folks that I'm slowing joining. Is this masochism a problem? It's not that there is anything wrong with being tougher than a little pain, than the misreable moments. It's when the motivation turns away from all that makes it worth it to simply just making it- that we might need to confront our own masochistic tendancies.

I killed 33 mosquitoes with 1 strike of my hand today- and I have small hands. I'll climb out of my tent tomorrow and do it again. And again. So I guess I'm getting a little sadistic out here too.

GUILTY AS CHARGED

Wow- so I haven't touched this blog in quite awhile, have I? I have all kinds of excellent excuses, a lack of electricity and internet access in my lifestyle, mountains to climb, plants to count, mosquitos to smash or occassionally rescue from the suicide missions into my oatmeal before smashing, and just general laziness. It has a lot to do with laziness. I tell people I want to be a writer, and yet, sometimes it is so hard for me to put such pretty plans into action. Aside from my personal journals and the trip reports for work, i haven't written much at all in 2008.

I'm freshly feeling guilty because I met another aspiring writer this weekend at an excellent Oktoberfest party in Lamiolle, NV. We talked writing and adventures around a His blog puts mine to shame. And shame is not an emotion that I am very familiar with, so I am taking it pretty hard. But it is also an excellent motivating factor.

I have so many things I want to write about, 2008 had thus far been a pretty great year for adventures and inspiration, so I guess I need to suck up my excuses and my doubts, and get back to work. I feel a little deja vu about this- prehaps I have restarted my devotion to this blog before a few times...but maybe this is for real....wish me luck....and occasional readership....in the efforts to follow.