As The Crow Flies

I finally left the Washington cabin and am making my way to the BC cabin.   I listed the BC cabin with a realtor.  Here is the info. Contact Brian Anderson if you want to buy it.   Owner contract available.

I should be in my cabin in BC;  I should be trying to sell it,  but instead, I’m hanging out in my Washington cabin listening to Colman Barks reading his interpretation of Rumi poems and enjoying the spring.     

It’s warmer now, everything is green, the wild flowers are blooming, and it’s hard to leave.

I spent a little bit of time improving a cave and thinking about moving into it.   I can sit up in it and lie down it it.     It has a great  southwesterly view so it should get good sun.

http://www.davidloome.com/

I hiked with this fellow for a while in 2007.  He is the only person I have met, besides me, that can go from sleep to trail in under 4 minutes.    He should have lots of good trail tested advice to offer.

He e-mailed me saying that hiking season has begun.   If I’m not hiking, I really would like it if no one else would.

Although…it’s not too late to order some new gear and hit a trail.    Heck it’s not even too late to start the PCT again.

I have fallen to a human disease.  That’s the down side to hermit life–you can end up with an immune system of an extraterrestrial.

I have been sleeping for 9 days now.   I made it home to my cabin, but after a week of laying there in the cold, I came to town and got a room for a couple of  days.   Tomorrow I resume cabin life.

This was an odd winter.   Usually I reel for awhile and then I settle into stillness.   This winter I kept reeling.  After awhile I just excepted my thoughts as something I need to look at and deal with.   Everyday I wrote about what I had discovered in my reeling and I started to remember big events in my life that I had forgotten.

It seemed like a waste of a winter, just reliving the past,  but I feel like I have grown from the experience.   That’s the thing about not having any distractions like movies or Internet, you have to deal with you.

So what I would do is go back to the past, in my mind, and fix stuff.   And If I couldn’t figure out a way to fix it in the past, I would think about ways that I could fix things now.

Because I feel strongly that  if you are going to hole away in cabin all by yourself for 6 months, you have to have rules, these were the things I made myself do everyday:

• Yoga
• Meditation
• Walking or spending at least 30 minutes a day outside
• Bathe
• Brush teeth
• Write
• Refrain from eating from after noon to dawn the following day
• Chores (chopping wood, melting snow, etc.)
• Clean my cabin

For inspiration I had:

• Autobiography of a Yogi
• The Peace Pilgrim–in her own words
• Destiny of Souls and Journey of Souls
• an audio-book called, “50 Spiritual Classics”

Often I listened to music that I had stored on my computer.   Sometimes I would pick out 3 songs and listen to them over and over.  Eventually I would come to believe that they were the most beautiful songs ever written.   Then one day I would change what three songs I was listening to.   I felt they helped me to think.

Somehow, that would fill my day….that and a lot of games of Spider Solitaire…because it also helped me to think.

So a great winter…one I hope I don’t need to repeat but still a great winter.

Thanks to a 6.89 dress from Salvation Army, a set of fake pearls, and a package of razors, I think I pulled off the wedding thing.

After months of peace and solitude, all the wedding  activities made my brain buzz; glad it’s just a one time thing.

Now to resume my previous scheduled serenity……

Hey from town.   I spent half a day digging my truck out of the snow and trying to unfreeze the lock on my gate but I have a wedding to go to so out I must go.

What a great winter it has been.   Not having a phone and Internet was a good move for my growth.

Not having the spring running was so eaisily solved by melting the snow that was right outside my door.  Once you give up wanting things a certain way, it’s amazing how easy life is.

I had plenty of heat thanks to a load of tamarack rounds I had dropped off right outside of my cabin at the 11th hour.

I wasn’t really worried..

Hey from town.

I have some wood.

I have some water.

I have some food.

It’s snowing.

It’s time to go  to my cabin and not come out again to spring.

I have been actively embracing the Buddhist phrase, “Only by doing nothing can we ever hope to accomplish all that needs to be done.”

I have no wood in.  I have no water stock piled even though the spring doesn’t appear to be running and the guy who usually gets it running is dead.    It should be an interesting winter.

I do, however have enough oatmeal, nuts, raisins, brown sugar, soy protein powder and some various supplements to last me all winter.

I don’t eat from after noon to 6am the following day.   Most days I have a large bowl of super oats in the morning and then nothing again until the following morning.   I makes me feel buzzy, full of energy, and a little high.

I do yoga and  some mediation everyday.

Not getting the phone, Internet and Netflicks  turned on has been a good move.  I highly recommend turning off and tuning in.

I’ve been pulled out of my sweet cabin life and into a house sitting stint for my sister.      Her house looks exactly like a happy Sim with the wealth aspiration.    If you have never played the Sims game before, let me tell you, the Sims with the wealth aspirations are the easiest Sims to make happy—all they need in life is to make or spend money.

You know what I want to do now? Hike the Grand Enchantment Trail. However, I sold my November for a ride home from Manning Park and also, I should get up to my cabin in BC to check on things up there so it may be spring before I hit that trail.

Maybe while I wait for my passport to get renewed, I’ll head over to my Washington cabin and read a book. No sense getting the phone turned on until I figure out what I’m doing this winter.

I miss trail life–it should never have to end.

Hey, I’m back from my hike.  There was 150 miles missed because of fire closures and another 112 miles in Oregon missed because of the “MUST HAVE CRAMPONS!” sign but I think I’m done with the trail for this year.  I’m sure I will be back another year. 

My sister and brother-in-law came and picked us up at Manning Park.   At the border crossing in Osoyoos, I handed the border guard my passport and my “permission to enter Canada through the PCT” papers.  

 He said, “Where did you cross at?” 

I said, “Monument 78″

Then he said, “That is not a legal crossing and do you realize, ma’am, that we could arrest you because you didn’t have permission to leave the country?”  

He took all of our passports and made us pull over to the side and come in.   Then after he couldn’t get any of the other people excited about it.  He said, “We have copies of all of your passports and the vehicle information, right here.”  

He said, “I’m not sure about the rules here but I’m going to look into this.   My name is Sutton if you want to find out what I find out.”

Do you see why I just want to hike and live in remote places away from the Suttons of the world?

The hiker that was missing came into Stehekin.   He was tired and had a wet bag but was fine.   He had a story of taking some wrong turns but ended up at trail workers camp.   It was a tale similar to “Goldie Locks and the three bears” except it was “Silver Locks and the Three Trail workers.”   It was great to see him alive and well.

It is supposed to be unseasonably cold the next week, maybe even snow.   I should have known that before I sent my shoes on and committed to walking the rest of the trail in sandals.

Probably should have taken my stove out of my bounce box as well.  Hot beverages would have been nice.  That down vest that was in there might be missed this week, also.

My son and I head out soon.

Hey from I don’t know where.   I left Stehekin on the boat and am camp out in a small hotel room with my son in some small town.   Tomorrow we take the boat back to Stehekin and start hiking the last 90 miles together.

I’m worried for a PCT thru-hiker that has failed to show up.   His hiking partner has not seen him since Tuesday morning and as of Saturday at 11:00am he was 48 hours late arriving in Stehekin.  His wife has not heard from him in a week and a half.   Search and rescue has been notified.

• I’m about 75 miles from Stehekin. Soon I’ll probably lose service for good. #
• Will be in Manning Park on Sept.6 #
• After that I could go back and try to pick up the miles I missed or I might just go home. #
• I meet my son in Stehkin on Saturday. Then we hike together– 15 mile days for a week. #

• In Skykomish–mile 2476. #
• My feet hurt and I’m tired and slow. #
• It’s supposed to start raining again. #

• It’s 43 degrees with pouring rain. #
• Thinking I don’t want to go outside because it’s cold and wet out there. #
• But I’m getting ready anyway. #
• Hiking on. #