The next morning, I got some bad news. Boo Boo had a stress fracture in her foot and had to get off the trail. She and Hedgehog are going to Seattle for a couple weeks to heal up, then head southbound to finish their thru-hike at Walker Pass. I will miss my new friends, but the timing should work out that I can watch Boo Boo when she runs the Crater Lake marathon later this year.

I went back to Kennedy Meadows to spend some time with Team PRT. It was Dishcloth’s birthday, and there is a general store out there, but not much else, so I brought a cake from town.

If you ever want to get a weird look from someone, go to the bakery and ask for a cake that says “Happy Birthday Dishcloth”. Works every time.

Day 1 at Kennedy Meadows had me bringing Manchurian, Hoop Dreams, and Peter Pan to Ridgecrest for the day. We resupplied and they picked out gag gifts for Dishcloth, including a sheer skirt and a championship wrestling belt, which apparently he has to wear and carry with him for the next several days.

We stayed up until midnight, sitting around the campground and talking. The next day, four of us went back into town, where Dishcloth caught up on his 78,000 birthday emails and texts and facebook wall posts.

By the time we got back to Kennedy Meadows, Robin was there waiting for me! I took her to town to celebrate our 12th anniversary a day early. We stayed at the Carriage Inn ($75 - most expensive hotel since Banning!) and I took her out for steak. The next day, she took a zero, and we went back to Kennedy Meadows to pick up Tears and take her to town to enjoy the wonders of air conditioning, forks, and roofs.

They got back on the trail the next day, and now I’m in Bishop, hanging out with Lion King again for a couple days. He’s been my “PCT tour guide” and has been in the right places to show me all the good hiker places as I get to new towns.

Robin & Rachel are in the Sierras now, I won’t see them until Saturday, where they have to hike off-trail for a day so they can get to town to resupply. I’m planning on sitting at the trailhead at Onion Valley road for a few days this week. It’s a long hitch, and hikers will need some help getting to town. Can’t wait.

PCT catch up blog Part 7

After leaving the ladies at the trail and taking Jon back to LAX, we got into Trail Angel country. First stop was the Saufley house, followed by the Andersons a day later.

After that, I decided I needed a few days off. I drove to Mojave and stayed at the Desert Inn for four nights while I waited for Robin & Rachel to hike there. I checked the budget again and took care of one of the video blogs. Then I had a couple days just to sit around - including a chance to watch Star Trek Into Darkness again, this time with Hedgehog.

When the ladies arrived in town, it was Rachel’s birthday. So we spent the night at the Desert Inn and had pizza in Tehachapi. The next day, the ladies were ready to roll again, and I headed into the day not knowing where I would stay that night.

These things have a way of working themselves out. As I was in town for lunch, I met a hiker named Treekiller, who was looking for someone to split his hotel room. I will always take a hotel room for a $20 split...

I was on a movie rampage, so Treekiller and I walked to the theater in Tehachapi and watched Hangover III. The next day we weren’t in a hurry, so we drove to Lancaster to watch Fast and Furious 6. I got the movie bug out of my system and then headed to Walker Pass to wait for Toots & Tears.

The famous Yogi, who literally wrote the PCT Bible, was at Walker Pass providing trail magic for the week, making food for hikers and providing shade, water, sodas, and rides. It was a restful couple of days for me, as Yogi and company provided most of the trail magic necessary for the weary hikers coming in from the Mojave Desert.

I was excited to hear that Team PRT was coming through. On my second day at Walker Pass, the whole group was there and we went to Lake Isabella to get shakes at Nelda’s - who has over 100 shake flavors - I ended up trying 4 of them over the next couple days (if you ever go, I recommend Love Potion #9 - raspberry sherbert and strawberry cheesecake ice cream).

The next day was very busy. In the morning, I took Boo Boo and Hedgehog to Lake Isabella, where they were to stay for the day for resupply. From there, I went to Kennedy Meadows for the first time, where due to some strange coincidence, I saw almost every hiker I knew. I drove back to the valley to meet a thru-hiker named Fuller, who was driving to Kennedy Meadows with his son, who was visiting from Oregon. They needed a ride back to Walker Pass, so they could hike back to their car. We worked out a meeting place in the valley and they followed me back out to Kennedy Meadows, and we drove out to Walker Pass again.

There is a large distance between cities and places of interest out here. By the time we got back to Kennedy Meadows, it was five in the afternoon. These are the best days for me on the trail - when I can help several hikers get long distances at a time they really need it. It was a busy day, but a great day. I finished up by picking up Hedgehog and going to Lake Isabella to watch Star Trek Into Darkness for the third time.

PCT catch-up blog part 6

After coming back from dropping off Hedgehog and Boo Boo, I met up with team PRT (Pacific Rest Trail) again for a night at a cabin in Wrightwood. It was nice to spend some time again with Mr. Green and company. Mr Green and I played a few games of cribbage, but team PRT lived up to their name and it was an early night.

Rachel’s boyfriend Jon was on his way to see us, and I drove to LAX again to pick him up. I didn’t have passengers in the car this time, so I couldn’t use the HOV lane. I decided to get to the airport a day early and stay in a nearby hotel. It was a smooth pickup, and we were back in the mountains again for a five-day hike vacation for Jon.

I went ahead to the Acton KOA, where I cowboy camped (!) and slept soundly through the night (!) despite lions and tigers roaring in the distance. (There are some big cats about a half mile from the trail. Not sure if it’s a museum or zoo or preserve or what, but I’ve never had to sleep with lions that close.)

One of the days at KOA, I found a thru-hiker, Fun Size, and he had decided to take some of the day off. He came out to the PCT road crossing with me, and together we did some trail magic. It’s really great when hikers do trail magic, especially considering it’s their day off from walking. The fact that a thru-hiker would be willing to use their day off to help other hikers is a testament both to the person and to how great the community is out here on the trail.

Team PRT showed up that afternoon, and several of us went to La Cabana for mexican food. It’s not easy keeping up with eight hikers and their oversized driver, but somehow the staff at La Cabana took care of us. Fun Size bought my dinner. Those hikers love trail angels. I seem to be the most visible trail angel, and therefore enjoy most of the benefits of their reciprocation. They just want to give back, and often times I feel like they’re doing me a favor instead of the other way around.

Robin arrived the next day, and along with Lion King*, I picked her up and we all went out for Mexican. The following day, Robin wanted to do some trail magic too! So we went up to the Red Carpet water cache and gave out sodas, beer, Capri Sun, grapes, and chips. Oh, and gourmet cupcakes that Robin had picked out. I thought they were amazing, and I hadn’t even been hiking all day! The hikers were very excited about having chocolate.

We stayed at the KOA that night, and looked forward to meeting with Rachel and Jon for a day and a half of rest in the city.

*Not sure how I ended up with Lion King again. We met up several times over the course of a week, sometimes by blind luck. He was doing the relay for life in San Bernardino in between section hiking some of the PCT. The order of the places we went together is starting to blur together a little bit.

PCT catch-up blog part 5

The next day in Big Bear was a zero day, but it was also Date Night for Robin and me. Robin was having no cravings on the trail at all, so I thought I’d take her someplace fancy. I found a neat little French restaurant, but it never seemed to be open, so I couldn’t make reservations. This turned out to be a good thing, because when I saw Robin at Onyx Summit, she said she finally had a craving - chicken wings!

So for date night, Robin chose the restaurant, and we went to a sports bar.

Best. Wifey. Ever.

We ate $10 hot dogs and the best wings we’d had since Bozeman, and closed up date night with a trip to the North Pole Fudge Factory and an oversized hot fudge sundae.

The next day the girls went back to the trail. I spent some more time in Big Bear, and on my last night there, I finally found Pukie and Voodoo Cheese (and now Stephen), who were staying with Darin at Darin’s family lake house. They invited me to stay with them, and we watched basketball, drank Old Fashioneds made with Crown, and I taught three more people how to play cribbage. It was a great night for me, but I haven’t seen them since.

The next day I drove to Wrightwood to meet up with Hedgehog and Boo Boo, who were heading to the east coast to go to Boo Boo’s graduation. Along the way I saw someone hiking along the freeway. It was strange because I knew the trail was quite a distance from the highway, so I pulled over and offered him a gatorade.

Turns out it was Lion King, who had thru hiked the PCT in the past, and in 2009 thru-hiked the ADT. ADT thru-hikers are rare, and when he met up with Toots later they had some notes to compare about the trail. I gave Lion King a ride to Wrightwood and found Hedgehog and Boo Boo.

The two of them took care of me for the next day and a half. They got me a room at the NICE hotel, and took me out for dinner and breakfast. This trail angeling thing is hard work, you know? Seems like whenever I see Magic Man or his daughter I get spoiled.

The next day I drove them to LAX for their cross-country flight, and went back to the mountains, once again safe from city traffic.

PCT catch-up blog part 4

After dropping off Toots and Tears on the trail, I drove to Banning, where I holed up in a Holiday Inn Express. I ended up staying two nights, getting over some kind of strange head cold. Finally on the third day, I felt well enough to venture back to the trail.

Next up was Big Bear. There is Big Bear City and the city of Big Bear Lake, and both are hiker resupply points and a few miles off the trail. Which meant there were plenty of hikers that were going to need rides. I met many, many hikers the week in Big Bear, and met up with many more that I'd met at Lake Morena or kickoff.

The first night in Big Bear I slept in my car in the parking lot of Nature's Inn. The second night I was over at the hostel in Big Bear Lake, and I ran into Mr. Green from Minnesota. I hadn't seen him since kickoff, and he and some other hikers were pooling together to stay at a cabin.  For fifty dollars I got a bed, laundry, and a steak dinner prepared my Mr. Green himself, including his steak sauce made with half a bottle of Jack and a jar of honey.

I met Manchurian, Dishcloth, and Awesome that night, and Whispers was there as well - I hadn't seen him since Mt. Laguna. We stayed up late, teaching Manchurian and Dishcloth how to play cribbage, and listening to what Mr. Green called "babymaking music" from the likes of Barry White and Marvin Gaye.

The next morning I went out to Onyx Summit and brought a bunch of hiker goodies out to the trail. Beer, soda, chips, and cupcakes. Also chairs! I offered rides but everyone decided to hike through to the next road crossing at highway 18, so I got to stay there all day and meet thirty great people. In the early afternoon, Toots and Tears came through and took a break with me. They planned to stop four miles short of highway 18, but they breezed through the next section and called at about 5:30 to tell me they were going to be ready to go to town that night.

I started scrambling to get everything back down the hill so I could go meet my girls. There were five hikers on the hill with me including G-Dub and (I think) Sensei. They all offered to help me get everything down and I nearly had a Tears for Beers moment. In one trip we got everything down the hill and I was so grateful to the hikers for helping me that I nearly cried.

I picked up the girls at highway 18 and we spent the night at Nature's Inn - the hotel of a thousand stuffed animals and the high-powered nipple-removing shower...

PCT catch-up blog Part 3

The ADZPCTKO (Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kickoff) started five days after Toots and Tears hit the trail. We drove back to Lake Morena from Julian for a weekend of information and hiker trash.

We set up camp quickly so we could make it to the shelter to watch Condor present his tips for keeping a journal. Entertaining, as was to be expected. Condor was a PCT "thorough-hiker" in 2011 and his journals prove it.

The three of us spent the night walking around with "#2", a hiker from Wisconsin, and found the large Reunion Bonfire and got plenty of tips from tipsy former trailsters. The current thru-hikers were a little more concerned about hydration, and so we turned in early - but not before bumping into Alienmarch again.

Alienmarch thru-hikes the PCT every year on a shoestring budget. When I first met her, she was swapping out the soles from some sandals and putting them into her shoes that she found in a tree! Hardcore. This time, she was trying to get reception for a radio show called Coast to Coast. She walked around with us for a while, a little suprised I was walking around in the "cold" wearing just my shorts and Hawaiian shirt.

Sunday morning I brought Toots and Tears back to the trail and went back to pick up Pukie, Voodoo Cheese, and Condor. Pukie and Voodoo Cheese went back to Scissors Crossing (after treating me to Frosty Burger), and Condor and I headed to Santee near San Diego to rest up for a few busy days.

How I Met Your Mother-style flashback within a flashback: while travelling through Oregon, we stopped in Bend to meet Condor, and he just happened to mention that he had a storage unit in Pasadena with items that he wanted to get to Bend. Well, I drove moving trucks for three years, and had nothing but time, so it made sense to get this taken care of.

We got the rental truck on Monday morning and went to the storage facility, an old building that used to be a bunker during WWII. It even had a freight elevator with only two buttons - up and down - and lines painted on the walls to try to help you line up the elevator when you got to your floor. After only five hours of loading, we had the 16' truck full, and Condor bought us In & Out Burger - the Double-Double animal style with a neapolitan shake!

I dropped off Condor at the airport Tuesday morning and began the drive to Bend. I had assumed about six hours of down time for some sleep on the side of the road, but I'd forgotten a couple things - first, the truck speed limit in California is 55, instead of everyone else's 70. Second - weigh stations. All but one of them were open on my route, and there was NO ONE at the weigh stations. So I plodded along at 3 mph trying not to do anything stupid, and wondering why the weigh stations were open in the first place.

Either of these things - the truck speed limit and the weigh stations - I could have probably ignored. I know most of the big rigs on the highway couldn't care less about the 55 mph postings. However, had I been stopped, I do have a CDL and I really know better...so I played it safe.

I got to Bend at 8 AM Wednesday morning after driving through the night. Condor graciously let me crash on his upstairs bed for three hours while he unloaded the moving truck. At noon, the truck was empty, and I needed to get back to the trail. I drove for five hours to Weed, CA and stayed at the Hi-Lo Motel. I even had my wits about me enough to stop at Weed Brewing and get the girls a growler of ETW, the beer that tastes like a milkshake!

Another day of driving, and I got back to the trail late Thursday night. At least, I think I did. I remember very little of the two nights and one day I was in Idyllwild. Many hikers say that they met me there and I gave them a ride. At first I thought it had to be some other guy with a green Vue with a Skybox and a red Hawaiian shirt. But looking back, I barely remember dropping off Toots and Tears on the trail a couple days later. Other than going for pizza and one or two memories of the cute hotel rooms we stayed in, I remember nothing. I'd been on a three-day bender and I was about to pay the price with a three-day hangover...

PCT catch-up blog Part 2

Woke up at the Acton KOA this morning. I slept like a baby last night, about nine hours of sleep despite the roaring lions in the distance. About half a mile from the campground is a wild game preserve, which has some big kitties. Anyway, I cowboy camped last night, and it was the best outdoor sleep I've had in my entire life.

Today I am at Sandy's Coin Wash in Lancaster, doing the laundry and excited to head out to Acton to do some trail magic. It was 74 degrees at 7:30 am...it's going to be a warm one and those hikers are going to need a gatorade when they hit Soledad Canyon road.

Back to Lake Morena - I left Lake Morena campground on day 2 of the hike. It was exciting because I didn't know where I would end up that night. I drove out to Highway 8 and got cell phone coverage. I had a message from Magic Man - we'd met him in Seattle during the road trip - offering me a place to stay for the night at his rented cabin in Mt. Laguna!

I met several hikers that day, including Hedgehog and Boo Boo. Boo Boo is Magic Man's daughter and Hedgehog is her boyfriend. Magic Man not only got me a place to stay, he took me to dinner in Julian! A well-earned reputation for that Magic Man. (Try, try, try to understaaaaaaand...)

The official kickoff weekend came up quickly and I got an email from Pukie and Voodoo Cheese, two hikers from Louisiana that I'd met at Lake Morena. I picked them up at Scissors Crossing at 9 am to bring them back to Lake Morena for KO, planning on returning at noon to pick up the girls - but the girls got to Scissors Crossing EARLY, as usual! They hitched into Julian and I met them at Mom's Pies.

Next time - Kickoff, and a real BENDer...

PCT catch-up blog Part 1

What a ride.

It's been about three weeks since Robin and Rachel began their hike. Or should I say, Toots Magoots and Tears for Beers. I have even earned a trail name - Aloha - though some hikers farther along the trail have taken to calling me Budweiser.

And so we go back to the beginning. Toots and Tears (TNT) started on April 22. It was a little strange just after they left, because the world felt so wide open to me. For the last five weeks we'd been driving toward Campo. For the previous two years we'd been preparing. So there was always a direction. Suddenly, there was nothing.

I felt so aimless that I just drove around Campo for a bit (it's a SMALL town), and found my first thru hiker to help besides TNT. He introduced himself as Red Bearfield. I drove him three miles to the monument that marks the southern terminus of the PCT and went back toward Lake Morena, where I was to meet and camp with TNT after their first day on the trail.

While waiting for them to arrive, I made some friends that had started the trail earlier or had made it to Lake Morena faster than TNT. The fact that I had Budweiser waiting for them may have had something to do with why they were so friendly. I met Pukie and Voodoo Cheese, #2, Luke and Ellie, Paul and Amelia, The Kid, Taylor and Wildfire, The Swedes, Darin, Rocky, Peter Pan, and several others that I would be seeing many times over the next couple weeks.

All I could really do - besides hand out free beer - was offer rides to the convenience store. It was only about a ten minute drive away, but every hiker was very grateful not to have to walk there. It was so exciting to help out, I just wanted to take everybody. Finally, when night fell, hikers began to go to sleep and the rides stopped.

TNT came into camp about an hour earlier than expected, so they had a strong start. A few of us stayed up until after dark sitting around the fire and talking. We stayed up until Hiker thirty and turned in for the night.

Pukie hangs out with TNT after a hard first day on the trail.

I've got three weeks to catch up on. The start of the hike seems like yesterday and last year all at the same time. I have never been so busy, happy, tired, grateful...nor have I ever felt more useful than I do right now. So many of my past occupations have prepared me for this role.

I am so looking forward to tomorrow. Just like I have every night for the last three weeks.

Road Trip Recap

Well, the first day of the hike has arrived. Time to transition to a new kind of life for a few months.

But first - a recap of our five week road trip!

We left Phillips, WI on March 15 before daylight to get ahead of the winter storm. The car battery went bad just after getting past the Illinois border. We met Joel in Louisville, KY at the VW show and slept in the car at a truck stop overnight.

Next day we saw the Smoky Mountains, watched UFC and drove through the night to get to Florida in the morning. Hung out with Scott & Erica for a few days and had some more repair work done to the car.

Stopped in Pensacola, FL to meet Daniel and make a visit to the Creation Store. Then stopped in Louisiana to camp on our way to South Padre Island, TX.

Stayed a week at Padre in Grandma's condo, then took I-10 through west Texas and into New Mexico. Drove through Roswell and Santa Fe on our way to Pagosa Springs, CO. From there, we went to Manitou Springs to get Rachel.

After getting Rachel, we went to Sarah's house in Silverthorne for a couple nights. Then through Wyoming and into Montana for two nights at the C'mon Inn Bozeman. Next were Idaho and Washington, specifically Seattle, where we took a ferry to Vashon Island to stay with "Magic Man" Mike.

Took the ferry from there to the peninsula, then around and into Olympic and the Hoh Rain Forest. Camped at the Northwest tip of Oregon and then we went to Bend for a couple days to stay with Kolby.

Drove through snowstorms to get to Weed, CA, where we stayed for one night, followed by one night at Karen & Jerry's in Sebastopol. Then two nights camping at Morro Bay and then San Elijo.

Two nights at the Motel San Diego, and last night we camped at Lake Morena County Park.

Thanks to everyone who gave us help along the way, including those reading the blogs and following on facebook.

Now we will be doing 20 miles a day instead of hundreds. Here we go.

I'm tired...

Current books:
Star Wars: Hard Merchandise

Recently finished:
Star Wars: Slave Ship

If only...

It’s been an interesting first week and a half on the road. Feels like it’s been a lot longer than that...

Robin & I had some challenges to start out. I’d like to say that we handled them better than I thought we would, but I still have to give myself a failing grade.

In a process I began over two years ago, I’ve been letting go of “things”. It has really been a liberating experience, and I have progressively felt less and less distress. First it was luxuries like cable TV, followed by material objects. “Learn to let go of everything you fear to lose.” Once you lose them, you don’t fear losing them anymore. Dealing with the fear of loss is worse than the loss itself and the life that follows.

I think this is particularly difficult for Americans to understand. This fear of loss is almost celebrated in our culture. We’re so used to the fear that we don’t even realize it’s there.

Living once you’ve lost things is easy. The tricky part is learning to live without the fear of loss even when you still have “things”. Then, if (or when) you lose your things, your life doesn’t change - or it changes very little.

Once Robin & I were able to make that shift in our thinking (for material things), we were easily able to physically let go of 75% of our things when we moved to the studio in downtown Oshkosh. Followed by letting go of 50-75% of the remaining things when we left for our trip.

70% of our stuff is now in Keith and Patty’s basement. 30% is in our car. That’s still A LOT of stuff, but it’s much less than we thought we needed two years ago.

The funny thing about this whole process is that although I’ve learned to let go of some things, my nature causes me to value the things that remain even more.

There is something inside me - not just the American in me, but the human in me - that has to worry about things. (At the moment I’m worried about MY things.) Now that material objects have less value to me overall, the trip and the hike have taken over my consciousness. My concerns have moved elsewhere. This is why I could care less about the thousands of dollars we’ve put into the car in the last few months - but also why I was so distressed when it needed to have work done. I’ve given up most of my things and nearly all of my time from June to December 2012 to make this trip happen. What if the trip doesn’t happen because I have to put all the money into the car? If I could have let go of the sense of entitlement I have regarding this trip, I wouldn't have been so concerned about the work being done on the car.

My goal is to ultimately shift my concerns - at which point the term “concerns” may give way to “concentrations”. The less I care about MY things, the more stress-free I feel, and I can concentrate my energies on things that are more important.

I still have a long way to go. After several days in a row of good luck and great experiences, I’m happier than I’ve ever been, so it’s easy now. The next step is to extrapolate from what I’ve learned from losing material things, so I can “let go” of this trip and this hike in my mind. If the time comes when I have to really leave it behind, maybe then I can handle the loss with a passing grade.

If nothing else, I've let go of my hair...

Moving On

It's been over a week since the crash, and I'm feeling much better. Thank you to everybody for your concern and support. It's been a strange week and a half, but I think things are back on track.

Keith and Patty picked me up at the body shop in Tomahawk, and drove me back to their house. I stayed with them that Monday night and wrote the blog about the accident in the wee hours of the morning.

I woke up the next day sore, but not as bad as I'd feared. My neck was stiff, but I've had worse. As the week went on, I noticed more sore spots: the bump on my elbow got smaller, but is still tender to the touch. I have a nice bruise on the back of my arm that I didn't discover until Saturday. For some reason the side of my ribs hurt, I think something hit my right arm and jammed it into my side. My left wrist hurts some when I move it certain directions.

This is the worst of the visible injuries -
I still can't believe I wasn't badly hurt.

Also, I seem to have re-stretched the muscle in my side that I injured the day I was driving army trucks back in April.

It could have been much worse, and the aches and pains aren't really that noticeable. Sometimes when I turn to check my blind spot, I get a shot of pain in my neck, but it happens less and less.

So I think I'm going to be A-OK in the physical department. It may take more time to get back to 100% psychologically, though.

I didn't drive at all on Tuesday, despite clear roads. I did manage to drive the Vue back to Oshkosh on Wednesday, including a 10-minute stretch at low speeds on a back road that was all ice. The drive home was fine, though I was a little more cautious than usual. Friday I went to visit Ken (for a not-bad movie this time) and there was a light rain (?) at 25 degrees. I took it slow, maybe a little too slow, but I didn't hold up traffic and I didn't lose control of the Vue.

This week has been a different story. I've been more nervous, even when the roads are fine. It seems like other motorists come up quickly behind me at stops. I've always been cautious about driving in bad weather, and this week I was downright petrified to go anywhere.

The plan was to stay with Rachel this week, but there was snow and 32 degree weather in Oshkosh on Tuesday night. Dreams of Rachel's WiFi and entertainment haven (she has TV!) were shattered as I decided not to chance driving to Appleton that night. On Wednesday the weather was the same, and I started to lose it.

Part of me thought I must be too sensitive to the weather, but nobody questioned my desire not to drive - either because it was too dangerous or because they didn't want to push me after the accident. By Wednesday night the weather had not changed, and I had an irrational depression brought on by the constant change of plans. I was in a very bad mood, and it was fueled by the thought that I had no reason to be in a bad mood, so what right did I have to be depressed? I wrote a blog entry but decided not to post it, as those that don't know me might have thought I was suicidal.

Unfortunately, I couldn't help but get my emo on through facebook and probably ended up scaring and hurting a few people. So, I'm sorry for that. Especially to Robin, who had to deal with a hairy, human-shaped Blue October album for 36 hours.

Yesterday, we got the last bit cleared out of our apartment and I started feeling much better. I knew we were heading to Rachel's and the loose ends were starting to get tied up. It started feeling like Disco Pickle was starting, and I allowed myself to get a little excited.

Today, I feel great and we're getting ready for tonight's party at Oblio's. I'm a little overwhelmed by how many people are planning on going. Thanks so much, and I look forward to seeing all of you.

There's not much to update for the hike, as we've just been moving, and everybody knows what that's like. 

Truck Update:

The truck has been totaled, despite relatively little apparent damage. The guys that worked at the shop said that judging from the damage, I probably rolled the truck twice. I couldn't tell you one way or the other. Also, the housing for the dome light was completely busted, which may explain the scrape on the top of my head. I prefer to think it was the salsa.

If you see Keith and Patty, please be awesome to them. They have been great to me through this whole thing. They're in a bad spot because their truck has been totaled, and Keith is driving around an old beater until they can figure something out. He's been more concerned about me than his truck, and actually feels bad for ME because I'm in a weird spot, having crashed somebody else's truck. Not that I expected any different from them, that's just the way they are. So, just be awesome to them.

Also - thank you for all the offers to send us more oatmeal!

Current Books: (taking my I.Q. text towards the middle of March - after that I will be reading much more!)

Star Wars: Slave Ship

Christian: Mere Christianity

Non-fiction: Tom Browns Field Guide: Wilderness Survival

Fiction: Undecided - probably The Grapes of Wrath

A Productive Day

February 18, 2013 - 11:35 PM

I woke up early today, 6:00! That's a lot earlier than most days lately, since I don't have to worry about work anymore, but I knew I had a lot to do today.

The plan today was to get everything ready to make a trip to Phillips tomorrow. Robin & Rachel have a huge stash of food that they've been saving up for the last year, and a whole bunch of food that they got from David McHolland.

I swapped the Vue for Keith's (Robin's dad's) Ford F-250 last weekend so I could bring a big load back to Phillips, where Keith and Patty (Robin's mom) will send the food to us in resupply boxes while we're on the trail.

I took the truck and ran all my errands: fuel up, buy binders, buy an mp3 player, get a haircut.

I went to Appleton and loaded up the truck with all of the food bins - about ten big Rubbermaid tubs in all. The girls even had labels on some of them: 199 instant meals, 110 mashed potato packs, etc. I headed back to Oshkosh to fill up the rest of the truck. I managed to fit in a dresser, Robin's cabinet with all her stickers on it, and a few other bins. I was pretty impressed with how much fit into the bed and the cab!

I decided to go to Phillips a day early, since I was so far ahead. I could still make it to Phillips during daylight, and besides, Mom has cable and I could spend a whole day in Phillips just chilling out. I checked the weather report and saw no warnings of precipitation!

I stopped at Festival on my way out of town to pick up my favorite salsa, Tostitos Cantina Style Chipotle. Can't get it at Pick & Save and certainly can't get it in Phillips.

Headed out for Phillips at 3:30. According to my Navigation App, I would arrive in Phillips at 6:45. I called Dad, as he was heading back to Phillips from Medford.

"Adam, is it snowing where you are?"

"Nope, not yet. I didn't know there was supposed to be snow." We talked about Packers and Final Fantasy XIII and eventually one of us ran out of cell coverage.

I got through Stevens Point and I noticed there was some snow starting up. I called up Dad, to ask if it was still snowing in Phillips. I thought maybe if it was a small storm, it would blow through soon, since it had been in Phillips an hour ago.

Unfortunately, it was still snowing in Phillips. I checked the temperature: 37. OK no problem. Half an hour later I was in Wausau: 36. Snow coming down some, but not bad.

I got to Merrill: 32. OK, that's a bad temp. At 32, snow melts and freezes and thaws out and refreezes and you've got a nice, slick road surface. The road temp is generally a degree or two higher than the air, so I watched the spray coming off the tires of other cars. Still spraying like mad. No problem.

I was driving 65. Usually in the Vue I drive quite a bit slower than most traffic in poor weather. It's made of plastic and has very little weight, therefore it has less grip on the road. I was going a little faster than some of the traffic, they were driving at maybe 60.

I had a lot of thoughts, the same thoughts I have every time I drive in bad weather. I've driven in a lot of bad weather, often when driving even bigger trucks. I thought about a rollover. What would that be like? I'd recently seen a trailer for Cloud Atlas, where it shows Halle Berry inside a car that was flipping over and heading into the water. Probably like that, I thought.

I got to the Tomahawk area, and I thought I felt the slightest wobble from the back end of the truck. Or was it my imagination? OK, time to slow it down. Stay off the brake. I turned off the cruise control and slowed it down to 60, the same speed of the three cars I'd just passed.

I felt comfortable at that speed. When I feel comfortable at a speed, it's probably safe. I've made truck driving trainers NUTS because I refuse to drive over the speed limit and I also refuse to drive at a speed faster than I feel comfortable with in bad weather. Big pickup, plenty of weight, same speed as the other cars on the highway. No problem.

About one minute later, over the span of one second, the truck turned sideways, passenger side first, and started heading for the left shoulder.

I've fishtailed and skidded before. I knew even before the truck was perpendicular to the flow of traffic that I had no chance of getting out of this skid. It happened so fast I wouldn't have had time to react anyway. Skidding sideways, I had a surprisingly dull realization of the danger ahead of me in the next few seconds. I was afraid, of course, but I knew there was nothing I could do now. Nothing I could do to help my mortal body or change the fate of my eternal soul. It's too late now.

Famous last words: Oh...

...

...shoot.

I'm not kidding. Those were my exact words.

This could be it. I might die now. I didn't think, "I might get injured," or "I might get paralyzed." I might die now.

I wasn't worried about all of the bins crushing me, the dresser splintering and stabbing me, or the cute chair sitting upside down on the passenger seat smashing into my body. My only concern was the roof coming down (up) on my head when it hit the ground.

Maybe...just maybe...it won't roll over. By some strange miracle.

The back wheels won the race to the north and the front wheels won the race to the shoulder. I shut my eyes. The back end swung around behind me, and I lost track of what was happening to the truck.

Some small object hit the top of my head. Nothing bad, but enough to make me realize things were loose - or falling sideways. Something hit the side of my face. I knew I was rolling over. I let go of the wheel and covered my head with my hands.

Then everything was still. If I'd rolled, then I'd only rolled once. The truck was...upright? I did a quick "systems check" and decided that the right side of my jaw hurt a little, but not bad. I was...OK?

Really?

The truck was still running, and it was in between the northbound and southbound lanes, right in the middle of a deep ditch with at least twenty feet of space on either side. A dance version of Forever Young (yes, really, I went back and checked the playlist) was still playing through the radio from my phone. I shut the truck off and looked for the phone. There, under the passenger seat.

It didn't react. Uh-oh. The cover was a little off, maybe it can't sense my touch. I pulled the Ballistic case off and tried. Worked perfectly. $40 well spent on Ballistic.

Dial 911. Wait, where am I? Tomahawk. My Navigator app was still running. 6.8 miles to highway 8.

Dial 911. Ring. Try the door. Ring. Stuck? Ring. Push harder. Door opened. An answer from dispatch.

I'd like to hear the recording to see if I sounded as cool and collected as I thought I was.

"I've been involved in an accident on the highway, I think I rolled over. I'm seven miles south of highway 8."

As it turned out, four other cars had rolled over in the last five minutes. So dispatch had to confirm my location a couple more times to make sure. She asked if I was OK. "I think so. I don't think I was hurt bad. I should be fine."

As I was talking, I got out of the truck. Dispatch is sending someone to me.

No sign of the three cars I knew had been right behind me.

OK. I'm fine. No problem. I'm going to live. I'm not seriously hurt.

Right?

OK, I might be in shock. Look at my body. Nothing out of the ordinary. No blood. OK. Probably fine.

Somebody pulled up in a pickup with flashing yellow lights. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I think so. I just called 911 and they're on their way. I think I rolled it."

"Yeah, you did, the roof is dented. Will you be OK?"

"Oh yeah, I was hauling food, I'm good for days." That was an exaggeration. I had enough food that I could have survived for two months just mixing snow with potato flakes.

I finally turned to see the damage to the truck.

Realization. Deflation.

KEITH'S truck. Oh, no...

The truck itself didn't look too bad, considering. The roof wasn't dented real bad, but the back window was blown out by one of the bins in the back seat, and the truck bed...

Oh yeah...the food.

Sealed packages of tuna and salmon. Meat sticks. 199 instant meals. Eight BILLION packages of instant oatmeal. Food that was meant to be spread out over 2,650 miles, now spread out over a fifteen foot radius around the truck.

I called Keith. "I've got bad news, Keith. I rolled your truck. It doesn't look too bad, but the roof is dented, it might be totaled."

"Never mind about that, are you OK?"

Oh yeah. Oops...

Keith said he and Patty would come and pick me up. So it was a matter of waiting. And the world's coldest and weirdest game of 52 pick-up.

I walked around to the other side of the truck to see if I could open the passenger door. I got it open, and my grocery bag fell out. Potato chips, check. Tostitos, check. Salsa...what? Salsa...where? Something had hit me in the head while I was in zero-G. No...

I went back around and checked behind the driver seat. A pair of sunglasses. Wait...these are mine. But they were in the closed center console...inside a carrying case. And now they're under the back seat? Wait, where are my glasses? I'm not wearing my glasses! I got my backpack out and found a spare pair. Whew...this was going to be fun enough WITH vision.

I started picking up what I could of the non-paper (a.k.a. oatmeal) packages. A lady in a car stopped on her way past to check if I was ok. I said I was fine, I have people on the way, and thanked her for stopping.

Robin's movable closet with all her stickers on it was reduced to boards. I slowly, carefully placed one of the boards in the truck bed. Then I laughed at myself and carelessly threw the next five pieces in.

I got almost all the non-oatmeal back into the truck and an ambulance slowly crept up from the south. I decided to walk up because I figured they were stopping for me. An EMT got out and asked if I was OK. I guessed that it had been about fifteen minutes since the wreck, and I thought I probably wasn't in shock anymore, but I'd better have him check me out. By the time he reached me I had my jacket off.

He checked the top of my head first, asked me to move my tongue and pressed me in places that I suppose might have been sore after a crash. He said I was fine. My right elbow was puffed out farther than normal on the inside and I started to worry. He said it was probably a bruise. Then I realized that I had been picking up fairly heavy objects for the last fifteen minutes, so yeah it was probably just a bruise.

He said, "So you were coming from the south?" and pointed north. Uh oh.

"Wait, THAT way is south?" The whole world rotated 180 degrees. Ah, that explains the tire tracks coming from THAT side of the highway. I did a mental facepalm while the EMTs were amused but gracious about it.

The police showed up and that's when I'd found out I was the fourth rollover in five minutes. I guess it came on fast.

They called a wrecker and got the truck towed out from the ditch. I waited in the police car until the flatbed came by. I started talking and wouldn't stop. I realized I must be coming down from something. Finally the truck was up on the flatbed and I got the ride to the shop.

I was able to think about the ramifications of the accident. Keith & Patty probably need to get a new truck. It probably won't impact Disco Pickle too much. Beyond that...well, I probably can't get a truck driving job for over a year now. Oh well. An hour earlier I was surprised just to be alive and mobile.

Keith and Patty were there waiting for me at the shop. Keith came over and I went to shake his hand, but he gave me a hug, which I didn't realize I needed until then. We checked out the inside of the truck and pulled out as much as we could to put in Keith & Patty's little SUV.

Keith was over on the passenger side, looking for things to take back to Phillips. "Hey, Adam..."

"Yeah?"

He held up an uninjured jar of delicious salsa...

Current books:

Star Wars: Slave Ship

Christian: Mere Christianity

Non-fiction: Tom Brown's Field Guide: Wilderness Survival (the Attitude chapter came in handy today)

Fiction: Undecided

The Pickle Jar

Disco Pickle - Know My Role

Well, first and foremost I'm running vehicle support for Robin and Rachel. Basically, I am going to try to make their zero and nearo days as easy as possible for them, so they can do whatever they want off the trail. This includes shuttling, doing laundry, picking up and delivering resupply, and scouting hotels/restaurants. I want them to feel like they have little responsibility once I pick them up.

Also, I will be attempting to help other hikers as I can, mostly in the form of trail angeling along the PCT. I'm thinking I'd like to stop at road crossings and provide fruit, hot food, beer, music, entertainment, conversation, etc. I'll definitely be giving hikers rides to towns within a few miles, but I am on a limited budget and can't go too far.

Best Laid Plans

As you can tell, I'm probably going to have a lot of spare time this year. I have some ambitious goals that I am going to try for during Disco Pickle.

Hiking: I might as well. I'll try for four to five days every week, between three and ten miles a day.

Reading: They say you can lose twenty I.Q. points on a three month vacation. I'm going to see if I can increase mine over the next eight months. I usually switch between three or four different books while reading, so at the end of my blog entries, I'll have the books that I'm currently working on. I will be going through four different types of books - Star Wars, Christian (self-help and religious study), non-fiction, and fiction. I'm particularly looking forward to the fiction books, because I am going to try to read a few that I really should have gotten to before I turned 34. This includes The Da Vinci Code, The Grapes of Wrath, and Great Expectations. I'm providing the names of my current reads as conversation pieces, so hopefully I can discuss the books with my blog readers.

Church: I'm going to try to attend a lot of different churches; if I can, I'd like to participate. I have quite a bit of experience singing both classical and contemporary, and I think I could add to a service with minimal rehearsal time. I'm curious to see all the differences between the churches.

If you have any trail, book, or church suggestions for me, please let me know!

Current Books:

Star Wars: Slave Ship (K.W. Jeter) (queued)

Christian: Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis)

Non-fiction: Tom Brown's Field Guide: Wilderness Survival

Fiction: undecided

Bad Movie Night

One thing I will miss about the “old life” is Bad Movie Night.

There is something about getting together with friends to share something so bad that it’s good. It’s a unique bond, a brotherhood that ties you together using poor screenwriting, plot holes, and awful delivery. It’s not “misery loves company”. It’s more like Jeff Foxworthy saying, “Have you ever seen people so ugly that you had to get someone else to verify it?”

Back in my college days my favorite movie was Army of Darkness (NOT a bad movie). Every year on Ash Wednesday (and on other dates) I would host an “Ash” Wednesday party and watch Army of Darkness. I remember playing “Who Wants To Win A Bucket Of Evil Cookies?” prior to a viewing, in which players answered increasingly difficult questions about the movie, some of which I’d picked out watching the movie frame by frame. Every question was correctly answered.

One afternoon before an Ash Wednesday party, Chris came over to watch Evil Dead, a movie that I’d seen before and didn’t like because Ash was such a whiny baby until the very end. Watching it with a friend proved to be a completely different experience! We laughed about the overly amorous tree, the bad acting, and the utter lack of horror.

Five years later, I was truck driving over the road for Schneider. It was exhausting work, officially taking twelve to fourteen hours a day, but with paperwork and trip planning, often spilling over into sixteen to eighteen hour days. Any spare time was precious, and occasionally I even had enough time to watch a video. With so little entertainment, I was very easily entertained. I saw Taxi starring Jimmy Fallon and Queen Latifah and thought it was a comedic masterpiece. Every movie I watched was GREAT. Except for one.

The two prominent cyborgs on the
cover are NOT in this movie.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but Future War was quite possibly the best bad movie anyone has ever seen. Starring Daniel Bernhardt (a.k.a. Jean-Claude Van Dang), the story itself is so laughable one wonders how it ever became a movie. A runaway slave from the future (who was abducted from earth’s past) arrives in “present-day” California with obese cyborgs and velociraptor-sized T-Rexes chasing him down. He takes refuge in a halfway house and befriends a nun-in-training. Beyond this, people are trying to survive attacks from dinosaurs and cyborgs, but it’s impossible to make sense of why anybody does anything else in this movie.

The DVD was made in 2004. The movie was shot in 1994, and released in 1997 - though some sources say 1996. It looks like the film quality is from 1972, the actors are from 1989, and the wardrobe was provided by Mick Foley. They must have only had one video camera to use to film the movie, as the cameraman character in the movie had to settle for using a cardboard box with a camera taped to it.

Many of the movies I watched at this time were bad, but not this bad. I gave several DVDs away at white elephant gift exchanges after returning to Oshkosh, but I could not let go of Future War. I told people that I’d seen the worst movie ever made. Surprisingly, nobody wanted to watch it with me.

Finally, I found three people that were willing to try. I went with Andy and Eric to Ken’s house for “Bad Sci-Fi Movie Night”. On the marquee: Future War and Zardoz. Unfortunately, Netflix dropped the ball on Zardoz and we ended up watching Logan’s Run (NOT a bad movie). But Future War was shared, and a tradition was born.

Anonymous #2 displaying proper technique for
surviving bad movie night.

Future War inspired a bad movie night every few months, and even a bad movie club. A few months later we had Bad Star Wars Movie Night at Jason’s house. Apparently Ken was upset with me for making him watch Future War, because he had us watch the Star Wars Holiday Special, featuring elderly Wookiees watching soft porn, among other disturbing images. Ken was smart. He had “prior engagements” and didn’t show up until the movie was over. Had he been there for it, we may have encased him in carbonite.*

Several bad movie nights followed, but we started having most of them either at Ken’s new (brew) house, or at my place, where we preceded Bad Movie Night with wine "tasting". So it’s a bit of a blur, but over the last few years we managed to stomach Howard the Duck, Zardoz, Aliens vs. Avatars, Mega Python vs. Gatoroid (from 2011, starring Tiffany and Deborah Gibson), The Room, and Titanic II.

Perhaps someone will hate themselves enough to carry on the tradition of bad movies in the Fox Valley. If not, I still have fond memories of eight to twelve people stuffed into a room, laughing and sharing something they (unfortunately) will never forget.

Please share your bad movie night memories below! DON’T pause the movie to do so.

*Just a note for those who would follow in my footsteps: Star Wars Holiday Special is NOT bad movie night fodder. It is more something you would have someone watch if you wanted to damage them psychologically, like if you wanted to re-enact Clockwork Orange.