May 10, 2015

• The Road to 65, Mile 154: May DayMeanderings

  May 1, 2015, Prescott-   Th fifth month of the year always finds me taking stock of my assets, making concrete plans to consolidate my possessions, and downsizing, prior to a summer of journeying and carefully living in balance.  This summer will take me to Nevada,Mt. Shasta, the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, southeast Alaska and back down through the Palouse, Idaho and Utah; then to southern California, after a brief July 4 respite here.

  For someone who values survival skills, I am a bit wet behind the ears.  Tent pitching and foraging for food are my immediate concerns, as is mastering the art of inflating an air mattress.  See, I have put up my tent,had it stand for five or six hours, then woke up and found it hugging my face.  This needs to stop.  I like sleeping under the stars, and still will, whenever prudent.  Being that I will share space with Alaskan brown bears, for a few days in June, I think a solidly pitched edifice will better suit my circumstances.

  Later this summer, Grand Canyon hikes and jaunts along the Mogollon Rim in AZ and New Mexico, will afford me the company of a master woodsman.  These days will prep me for a 2017 thru-hike of the Arizona Trail, as will this Fall’s earnest completion of the Black Canyon Trail, over four stages, from Bumble Bee to Lake Pleasant Road.  The Prescott Circle will finally be unbroken, and the Maricopa Trail beckons, in Winter.

  All this crossed my mind, after a day of hearing the woes of a teen boy who has a serious crush on a lovely young lady, ten years his senior.  It will go nowhere.  The woman has a good man in her life, and besides, that’s where crushes are supposed to go.  I used to be there, though my crushes, early on, found more contemporary focuses.  He will, as well, no doubt.

  After making a brief visit to a school whose constituents and staff observed its last “birthday” as an institution, I came home to find that the man I had befriended, and tried to help, over the past seven months, was actually a wanted felon.  He was being taken into custody, as I pulled up to my driveway.  I pulled in, through the neighbour’s drive, and was informed that he had vandalized my upstairs neighbour’s property, thus the collar.  I have no idea what he is accused of doing, previously, but this does explain the hackles I have started to get on the back of my neck, as the day for taking him up towards Las Vegas approached.  Now, that is no longer in the works.  I have some of his possessions in my back storage, and his vital papers in the house.  These will all stay put, and untouched, until the legal process plays itself out.

  So, I begin this fascinating month, hopeful, energetic, and chastened about human nature.  Tomorrow, I brush up on foraging and go to help a dear friend, one who can be trusted.

  • 2:03 am
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