What's going on.

So far, I seem to be in a 2-3 blog post a week rut. I have to stop letting things like work and sleep interfere so much. Cut me some slack. I’m working on it. Thank you to Jennifer Davis for the instructions on how to post to my blog via email. This new information could have disastrous consequences for every aspect of my professional and social life, but it seems really fun.

Before we get to the continuing saga of my backpacking trip and since you asked, let me tell you some of what’s going on in my life.

1. Gibson, my oldest son, will start first grade this year after his over-achieving, over-bearing, over-pressuring parents forced him to skip kindergarten and move right to first grade. Everyone associated with the educational process who have never met our son have been good enough to share with me that, notwithstanding the fact that 3 days keep Gibson from automatically entering first grade this year (Gibson will turn 6 on Sept. 3 which means he can’t possibly qualify for first grade this year), that because of us Gibson will end up a drug-dealing psychopath as a result of our decision to skip him from pre-school all the way to first grade. In the end, though, the primary factor in our decision is my and my wife’s mistrust for kindergarten. First, it is a German word roughly translating to “garden of children.” I can only assume this means that educators believe that children are grown on bushes in gardens. I think this marks an unforgivable misunderstanding of basic science and biology that has proven conclusively that children come from fairy-land being carried by winged horses to our door step. Second, some kindergartens still have nap time and until I am allowed to nap in the office without having to crawl under my desk, then my children will stay awake too as my own form of protest. Finally, I saw that movie with the Governor of California about kindergarten and some of those kids had quite the potty mouth and I don’t want to expose my child to that. I’m sure they grow out of that by first grade.

2. I just got a high definition receiver for my downstairs (man room) TV just in time for football season. It is fantastic. It is just like when I remember to wear my glasses while I’m driving and the on coming cars no longer look like weird globs of jello hurdling down the road at outrageous speeds. I can’t wait to see the lights shining off of Tony Kornheiser’s dome in HD. The intensity could light my entire basement.

3. I’m working on my list of pet peeves for a massive post on the subject later. Today’s addition: People who sit next to me on MAX when there are empty seats elsewhere that don’t require you to sit next to someone, or in the case of the MAX seats, “on” someone.

4. My sister-in-law just gave me 4 magnetic ball-bearings. I can not stop messing around with them at work. It has shaved a good hour of productivity off my work day. I am considering suing the manufacturer and will if I ever get back to work

5. I’m preparing for my fantasy football draft next week. I have the 5th overall pick in a keeper league. I know you are dying to know who I am hoping to pick, but I can’t share that information with you here because spies from my league are everywhere. But I’m not one of those geeks that obsesses about fantasy sports and spends hours pouring over stats and watching preseason football. Those guys are pathetic. I never spend more than 80 hours in a given week thinking about football. I mean, in the offseason of course.

6. I’m preparing for a trial where my expert witness is going to so destroy the other side’s case, I actually, out of the goodness of my cold, dark, lawyer heart, warned the other side of their impending doom. And this in spite of the fact that the lawyer for the other side has been talking trash about his case. Ok, so it wasn’t out of the goodness of my heart, it was so they would get reasonable in settlement and take my low-ball offer. However, they have declined which means that I am about to have the lawyer’s equivalent of dunking a basketball in a pick-up game over the guy who has been questioning your manhood all day. I’m really giddy about it. I know, I need professional help.

7. This weekend I’m renting an earth-moving tractor thingy to move dirt around in my back yard. It is on tracks like a tank and everything. Turns out, if you give Home Depot some money they will let anyone tow one of these away and use them for the day. Why hasn’t this become a popular weekend activity. “Honey, I’m going out with the guys to move some dirt in that vacant lot. Don’t wait up, Barry’s renting that one with the giant wheel that crushes stuff.” But the real point of me sharing this is to mention that I’m not even going to drive it because my wife is more excited to use it than I am. Is she cool or what? You might think you know some cool wives, but my wife is the Fonzy of cool wives.

Ok, back to my trip diary from my backpacking trip with my wife and youngest brother Enoch to the three-sisters wilderness area which may or may not have been on fire at the time.

Day 1 continued….

Putting our concerns over our late start and possible forest fire aside, we headed off down the trail. The map we had showed two trail heads and it was impossible to know which one we were on. One trail head just led us directly on the trail we wanted that would take us to our camp site for the first night. If we were actually on the other trail, we would need to go about 100 feet and then find a trail on our right that would connect about a mile later to our trail. Also, we had a hand held GPS so that if we got really lost a GPS would tell us the precise number of miles we had walked to get ourselves lost. Oh, and the precise time of sunrise. In reality, the GPS was cool and like most cool new toys I have a nearly irresistible desire to own one tempered heavily by my even stronger desire not to spend money.

Anyway, we headed down the path and came to another path on our LEFT about 100 feet from the trailhead. In spite of our map, GPS and common sense, we decided that must be the trail that leads us to the trail we really want. Why did we think that? What possible reason would we have? I really have no idea. I blame magnets. Thankfully though, after going about half a mile, we finally decided to consult the map again, realized our mistake, turned around and got back on the trail we were originally on. By that time, we are all starving, but couldn’t bring ourselves to stop for lunch while still in site of the parking lot, so we pressed on.

Along the way we hiked through some beautiful forest on a great trail. It was perfect weather, not to hot or too cold, not a cloud in the sky and it was almost enough to make me forget what a bad idea it is to train for a hike with a 55 pound pack by sitting in front of a computer posting to your blog. After an hour or so we stopped for lunch where Enoch discovered a down tree that had fallen over another tree and come loose from its roots creating a giant log teeter-totter. Enoch and then Tanya spent much of the lunch break teeter-tottering on this giant log to my and their great amusement as I pondered how I was going to carry them both out after they fell and broke their legs. Fortunately, the games ended without injury and we moved on.

One note about our meals on this trip. For lunch we brought bagels, peanut butter, beef jerky, power bars and skittles. In other words, about 3 bites into lunch the food had sucked every drop of moisture out of our bodies, so needless to say we needed water which would come into play on Day 2. More on that later. For now though, suffice to say that lunch wasn’t anything to get real excited about. While we’re here, what is the deal with power/energy bars? They are loaded with carbs and sugar so why can’t they make one that tastes good? Everything else I eat which is loaded with carbs and sugar tastes great. Is there some sort of law of nature out there that nothing good for you can taste good? I don’t understand. Why can’t they just make it taste like a snickers bar, but have it be loaded with vitamins and protein and calories? What kills me is that every time I bring this up to someone, they say, “I know, but some of them taste good, like the ____ bar.” This inevitably leads me to try the _____ bar at which point I discover that by “tastes good” the person meant “tastes like sawdust and potting soil dipped in a hard plastic resin and then covered in the worlds most flavorless chocolate like substance.” They are all rubbish, so just accept it and bring lots of water.

After lunch our hike only got better and better. The forest was amazing and varied and then it eventually opened up into this massive lava rock field that looked like we were hiking on the surface of a very harsh planet or perhaps the moon if it weren’t made of cheese. All that was lacking was a billion dollar Mars rover high-centered over some rock taking pictures of the exact same patch of dirt for the next 10 years. The scenery was incredible and there were several spots on the trail where the views were spectacular. And since I’m running out of good adjectives, I will move on and just say the trail, the area and the hiking were all very very good.

Our destination for the first day was a meadow where my family had camped roughly 20 years earlier. If you are in my family and remember that trip and are reading this, read that again and tell me you don’t feel old right now. We were just counting on the meadow looking roughly the same as it did then and counting on our faded memories to recognize it. For reference we “knew” (or rather believed) that the meadow was after the turn off to Obsidian Falls. That, however, proved false. The importance of that fact is that we hiked much further than we anticipated and still had no idea how much further it might be before we reached this mysterious meadow of our youth.

Meanwhile, my wife who is easily in the best shape of the three of us (and that’s like saying Lance Armstrong is easily in better shape than the guys on the PGA tour), strained, pulled or otherwise injured her calf fairly seriously. I don’t know how much hiking you’ve done, but it turns out you have to use your calf quite a bit. No real getting around it. My wife responded to this unpleasantness as she does with most gut wrenching pain by ignoring it and assuring us that she was “fine.” According to my wife one is “fine” if they are more than 30 seconds from death and/or still have feeling in at least a quarter of their body. But, as the hike went on and on and the hope of finding this meadow decreased, my wife’s injury began to take on a larger significance. She didn’t complain, but show me a husband who can stomach watching his wife in pain and I’ll show you a guy who shouldn’t be a husband. Ironically, if we hadn’t made that initial wrong turn, we probably wouldn’t have felt so beat and would have pressed on past the only good camp sites in search of a meadow that wasn’t where we thought it was. So, the wrong turn was really a good thing.

Plus, our 6 mile hike had been entirely up hill, with the last portion particularly steep and my asbestosis was really getting the best of me so we decided to back track to a meadow we had passed a little ways back and camp there for the night.

You didn’t know I had asbestosis? Well, I am certain that I do and here’s why. I defend a number of companies who get sued for putting asbestos in their products…(allegedly). Now asbestos can be dangerous if breathed at certain levels, but none of my clients’ products contain enough asbestos to make that possible. Nonetheless they get sued (because the real players are all bankrupt) by people who are entirely healthy, but have been told by their lawyer that they have asbestosis. Don’t get me wrong. Some people really have asbestosis and it is a terrible disease. Just not the people who sue my clients. Nearly all of these people list as their only symptom, “shortness of breath when I walk up a steep hill or jog the stairs.” Since I suffer from that symptom as well, I assume I must have asbestosis.

Anyway, after my overly-energized brother literally ran ahead for a couple miles just to make sure the meadow in question was not “just around that next corner”, we all made camp in a different meadow. Fortunately for us, this meadow had a perfect campsite protected by a grove of trees and near a picturesque stream to provide enough water to eat at least half a cliff bar in a sitting. This is an over used word I realize, but it was awesome. It was the kind of place that make people who love backpacking marvel at how someone could not. You get to experience a place like that only if you are willing to put in the work and it is well worth it. Praise God for those places of such beauty that simply to be there feels like worship.

The only draw back…..Mosquitoes!!!! More on that later.