“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other i

I am here still ... embarrassed as some glitches have me stuck in the mud of the Willamette Valley even as the heat in the Arizona desert withers away the wildflowers I had hoped to see. Though alone I am really partnered with myself ... that self so disorganized and doubtful and daunted that getting all in order for a journey is for tomorrow. What seems so simple and easy becomes a fumbled task without an end ... Some of

this is just lack of practice and as Sandi reminds me that will be cured by the miles and by the nights at new camps and the new dawns experience and practice toward a routine. Some of this is because of age ... I can stand before the task at hand and forget which hand to grasp the task! I tire and get cranky like a toddler in the midst of a never ending sermon. Searches for tools or matches or dry socks become expeditions of discovery not of that sought but of that lost yesterday ...

Beverly Hillbillies or Grapes of Wrath ... Not sure but looking a bit raggedy in the muck and mire of the rain soaked valley. Never a winter like this I've seen until I lived through this spring!

Like gumbo the mud is carried along with Murphy and so much harder to sweep away than beach sand or the warm dry sands of the Sonora where I long to be ... Longing shan't make that happen only regroup and move forward!

“I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.”

John Muir

Stay tune