As The Crow Flies

It snowed an incredible amount last night and it was still coming down hard this morning. We probably got a foot of new powder. I put my propane tank in my backpack, strapped on my skis and headed down through state land to the little store to get it filled. I commented to the woman at the store that all this snow felt kind of festive but she said “No, it’s kind of fucked up, is what it is”.

I used my snow shoes for the way back. Man, I was tired. With the skis and full propane tank it was probably close to 50 lbs. Trudging up hill through all that new powder was so hard that I wanted to lay down in the snow and rest for awhile. By the time I got back, the propane tank had made a sore spot on my lower back. I need a pack board. I was looking at Luxurylite pack board. It’s really light but it’s sort of expensive.  Cabelas has a pack board that might be a less expensive solution. They have packboards ranging in price from 70 dollars to 120.00.

Well, here I am.  Spring’s coming.  A lot of the snow has melted but then the melt re-freezes.   So the road is a thick solid sheet of ice.  New dry snow fell today.  It doesn’t stick to the ice.  When I went for my walk I slipped  and fell a lot.  It’s like walking on cardboard across a waxed floor.

The Internet is seeming mundane and small.  Watching movies sometimes feels like a chore.   I’m antsy but not sure for what.

I’m only eating between 10am and noon, now.   It’s for health and for a discipline.  Every day is a mini fast and my body is responding well to it, although it seems to be filled with a lot of unfocused energy.   It’s hard to sit still.  Besides my 10-to noon eating thing I have also quit drinking coffee, for awhile, maybe forever.

My wood pile is really low; probably not another month worth left.

It’s been 3 months now since my truck has moved; I started it just to make sure it would start.

It’s been three months since I have washed my clothes or bedding.  I’m looking forward to the day  I can finally can get out and go to the laundry mat.

This is one Light my Fire Spork that won’t be poking me in the hand again.  I left it in a pot on the stove and before I realized it the tongs of the fork were melting down the sides.   I think it’s an improvement.

Sometimes I put my pack on and listen to Walkin’ Jim Stoltz’s “Long Trails” CD while I hike around my cabin, imagining I’m back on a long trail again. He has songs about the AT, PCT, CDT and other trails.

If you don’t have a case for your GPS, that protects the screen, I would recommend putting some clear packing tape over the screen.

As spring approaches I turn my attention to what this year’s adventure will be. This has been the winter of the blog and Netflix DVD’s. I’m thinking about this summer being yet another PCT thru-hike. When I start thinking about being back on that trail my body starts humming and vibrating. A part of me thinks that that would be the best thing to do this summer. Another part of me remembers how hard it is: the heat, the pain, the stinking horses and their obnoxious riders, the cold and the rain, bear worries, etc. How can something so hard be so alluring? I think it must be something in a person’s intrinsic programing that makes some people want to start roaming as spring nears where as others start thinking about planting a garden.

It won’t be long before I’m sporting 12 new metal Chinese spoons. A reader, of this blog, pointed me to this E-bay seller that is shipping the metal Chinese spoon, that I like for backpacking and travel, to anywhere in the world.

Because sometimes the world is a loud place, ear plugs are a good thing to have in your pack when you are traveling. Some hikers also carry them, to block out loud snorers in the shelters or when the wind is whipping their tent around so much that it is hard to sleep.

The best ones, in my opinion, are the EAR Classic Yellow Disposable Foam Earplug, because they can be washed or gotten wet and they still work; once the smooth foam ones get wet they will never fit in your ears right again. To wash the yellow ones just put them in your pants pocket and throw in the washing machine and dryer. I have been using the same pair, for when I use my chainsaw, for over two years. I found single pairs for sell in a drug store. They weigh so little that my scale with a 1 gram readability doesn’t register any weight for them.

Once I took a “Dealing with Difficult People” workshop. The instructor told the following story, I don’t remember why he told it, but it made me so mad that he probably thought I was a plant. The story the instructor told was: “Two men and one woman were marooned on an island surrounded by shark-infested waters. There is a rowboat. The woman asks the men to row her away. One says, ‘no’ and the other one says, ‘Yes if you have sex with me.”

I loudly asked, “Why didn’t she just row herself off?” And he said, “Because, it was surrounded by shark infested waters.”  I kept saying, “I don’t understand why she didn’t just take the boat.” And he kept saying, “Because she was afraid of the shark infested waters.”  This went on for most of the class.

After that class, my next job was running a skiff back and forth to a barge that was anchored in the Columbia. It was the middle of winter and the water and wind could be fierce some days. When I felt the need for some courage, I would think to my self, “Shark infested waters, yeeee ha!”  and plow ahead. Just like Xena and Tarzan have their cries, “Shark infested waters!”  has been my courage conjuring phrase ever since because it reminds me of the cost of fear.

For a delicious, healthy, hot beverage try a cup of silver tea. It’s cheap too, unless you are in Sweden, were it reportedly fetches at least the same price as a cup of Earl Grey.

My other cabin is water access only and I don’t own a boat, so if I would run out of coffee and tea I couldn’t go to the store and get more. I found that I was just as happy with some spruce needles in my hot water or even just a cup of silver tea(hot water).

“Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence” is a great book on freeing yourself up financially and getting your priorities clear.

I read it about 15 years ago and it changed my life. It helped me defined what was important to me and think up ways to get the life I wanted. Instead of focusing on getting more money, like most financial books, this one is about getting a more fulfilling life.

At the time there was a simple living series at the community college built loosely around the book. The teachers were all people trying for a simpler, more self defined life and they would offer good advice like: “Personal grooming—do as little as possible but not so little that people take notice.”

Note: This is a really popular book. You should be able to find it at most public libraries. If not, used copies are plentiful.

When I came back home after hiking the PCT, I went to Thailand for the winter, (as my job was seasonal and I didn’t have to work winters), to take a cob cottage building class. After the class was over, I decided to head to Laos.

When I got to the Laos border, I found they were no longer issuing visas at the border so I had to stay in Thailand. On the bus back, I met two teenage boys that had been over in Laos visiting one of their fathers. I was the only Westerner on the bus so they decided to practice their English on me. They said, “In my village all the people get up at 4 am., where I live no one wears shoes. Where I live, no one eats meat. Where I live we all keep the 5 precepts: No lying, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, no intoxicants, and no killing.” I asked where they lived and decided to check it out.

When I got there the next day, I found not really a village but an intentional community that was a little perplexed as to why I was there. They however gave me a place to sleep, introduced to me the English-speaking nun, fed me, and asked me where I wanted to work. I could chose from the herbal medicine shop, the mushroom farm, the fruit and vegetable gardens, the sewing shop, the dump, or compost making. I choose the herbal medicine shop. 2 months later, I was still there and loving it. I taught English and worked in the herbal medicine factory. The people were all so nice to me. I thought it was a wonderful place to live. The village stressed simplicity. There were two meals a day but you were supposed to try to only eat once a day. If you were only eating once a day the people would say, “Oh, very good.” You were supposed to be up a 4 am and you weren’t supposed to take a nap during the day. You were also supposed to go barefoot.

When the nun would go out almsing in the mornings, sometimes I would go with her in a practice known as bin da bawt or something like that. It means walking in the path of a nun. I would follow behind her. One day they put new gravel down, she had thirty years of walking barefoot, but I thought my tender feet would start bleeding.

I wasn’t spending hardly any money at all, maybe a dollar a week, when I would go into town to use the internet and maybe get a treat. Since I wasn’t spending any money I figured I didn’t need to make any money. So I started thinking about instead of returning home and going back to work, of going home and selling my house and all my stuff and moving back to the Asoke village in Thailand.

On my way back, I got the idea to sell my house and buy a piece of vacation property with the money, that could be rented out by the day or week. Then, if I wanted to come home I could tell the management folks to stop renting it so I could move into it. While looking for some practical piece of vacation property I found my dream property, a beautiful cabin on the water and bought it. Since I had my dream cabin I went there instead and have never made it back to Thailand or work.

So far things have worked out okay. It’s pretty cheap to live in a primitive cabin. For five years I didn’t have a laptop, solar panel, or telephone. Now that I do, I can tell you that those things don’t make things better, they just make things different.