I-70 WEST AND BEYOND – Page 9 – Travels Through Life

All systems working… well ALMOST all…

Well go figure… all that sneaking around and hoping the mind wouldn’t tell the body that it is time to be tired, didn’t exactly work but now a new theory has come into play….

It seems that no matter the distance, it is ALWAYS 6 1/2 hours of walking. Maybe subconsciously, on shorter days, when we make our mid-morning stop for breakfast, we relax just a wee bit more and that’s how the times always work out to be the same. 6 1/2 hours of walking, no matter how you pace it out. It is what it is. Another observation along the same lines is that whenever one of us is checking time or distance remaining, it is ALWAYS 10 kilometers, or 2 1/2 hours. No matter what. So, even if the town we are headed to is in plain sight (which means being able to see more than the cathedral tower), we’ve learned to still call it 10 kilometers. Granted, when on the meseta, and a town pops up on the horizon, we used to get so excited, but have learned over time that those horizon towns can be hours away. Not exactly a mirage as they do surface eventually, but a lot farther off than we originally thought. Even if we’re only walking 10 kilometers (which isn’t going to happen once, but for example’s sake…) and we’re 1/2 way there, we’re still 10 kilometers away. No. Matter. What. Seems to be another pattern running here…

Then my train of thought shifted from time to the physicality of all of this. I thought a lot about our bodies and how hard they are working, day in and day out. The feet are the main prize winners on this, still remaining blister free (in part I think as the temps on the meseta have been “unseasonably” cool (75ish) which in turn keeps the feet a bit cooler. And then there are the legs, certainly contenders for MVP’sas they are lifting the heavy boots (we’re guessing over a pound each…) with each step. Included in that system of course would be the knees and the hips, who are working non-stop to keep all the all the folks below them running smoothly. Then there’s the back…. one can’t discount the work of the back that has 20 plus pounds hoisted up onto it (yes, we’re no longer calling it 18, simply because we are carrying fruit and Mars bars daily, none of which are featherweight). The back is the work table with all the goods piled on top of it. Go back! You’re working hard. As are the shoulders, who are kind of the assistant managers to the back, while helping to hold up said 20 pounds of loot. The arms keep the pole (we each only use one) where it needs to be, while the other is at the ready to grab the camera if need be. There’s a lot of teamwork going on here, with no slackers in the bunch. Oh… well ALMOST no slackers. The breasts. We’ve concluded that they are simply free-loading as they’re doing diddly squat and they even require their own outfits, which by the way don’t dry near as quickly as all the other clothes.

So head to toe scan, that’s what we’ve come up with today. Lots and lots of work going on with all the body parts (except two), which of course includes the head, as it’s keeping me immersed in thought as I pace through the Camino. We’re on the meseta for approximately 10 days and it is said that this is the part of the Camino that is mental, the miles preceding being the physical part of the journey. The landscape is hauntingly beautiful (said from a gal who was raised in Kansas, who has its own share of the “meseta”) but in its vastness, there is little else to look at…no distractions of buildings, or lakes, or trees or signage or really anything but the pilgrims in your line of sight and the fields that meet the sky. A cloud is a welcome sight. I’m finding a real connection to the meseta as I’m someone who likes to hang out in my head quite a bit, but I certainly understand the challenge. At first I felt like plugging into my iPod would be cheating but we all make our own Camino, and the “rules” that go along and my rule is go to the music until the battery dies. Besides a bit of a distracted of time, it adds a lot to the already beautiful landscape. Daniella Romo, my favorite Mexican singer, got me across much of today’s meseta. Gracias a Daniella and apologies to those walking behind me given what they had to hear and witness. My hiking pole was swinging to the beat…a pole dance of sorts, I suppose. This is not an all day thing for me though as I find the quiet to be quite inspiring,especially in the early morning hours.

The monotonous days are teaching me patience and living in the moment, while the moments or hours or days of breathtaking beauty are teaching me the importance of gratitude. The amazing pilgrims I’ve met along the way are reminding me that kindness, compassion and caring for others are thankfully still very much alive and well. All you have to see is a fellow pilgrim limping along and each and every person who passes him, stops to ask if he’s OK. I witnessed this today while on the final stretch into our town. I’m continually touched by such acts of kindness and compassion.

A “hospital of the heart” that we walked past early this morning while on our way out of town…a place to go for quiet thought. I wish we had discovered it sooner…What a beautiful idea.

The mind and the body are in cahoots and we’re paying.

Man wears spaghetti ascot… oh wait… that doesn’t have anything to do with anything, but funny, huh?

I’ve had a lot of time to think… about 6 to 7 hours a day for the past week. The Camino is the perfect time to think, until it’s not, and honestly, that’s when you’re in trouble. Trouble, because you can’t escape yourself, or your thoughts no matter how much you try. So here’s the thought process that I couldn’t escape today…

Without exception, it is ALWAYS the last hour that seems to be the problem for both Susan and I while walking the Camino. The last hour is when the feet start crying out and the body is simply tired. That would make sense if every day we walked the same amount of time and it was the same degree of difficulty, but that’s simply not the case. The times vary and some days have been shorter and much easier than others, yet it is still that last hour that brings the trouble to the forefront.

So, this is what I’ve come up with while pacing myself through 7 hours on the open, exposed, unchanging views of the meseta today…

The body and the mind are in sink, something that I know from yoga and try to achieve, yet right now, at this very moment, I feel like the two of them need to be separated because they are simply causing trouble by working together. The mind, at some point during the day, says to the body, “OK, I heard Laurie talk and looks like she’ll be walking for 7 hours today. So, you know what to do around 6 hours. Oh and she’s on a sister trip, so this is going to go on for a while. Those two push limits when together….”

To that, the body responds, “OK, got it. I’ll start the feet in complaint mode, at about an hour before their destination, then will target the more sensitive areas, such as Susan’s knee and Laurie’s shoulder, if need be. It will insure that they both will continue to do the right thing… legs up the wall, lots of water, yoga poses, etc.”

Those two. Their scheming is hurting the last hour of our game. When the mind seems to know when the body is going to hit the wall, so to speak, and once that power has shifted, there’s no going back and it is ALWAYS one hour before quitting time. I think it’s time to trick the mind and buy ourselves some time…. an hour precisely.

And then there’s the whole leaving early thing…. I truly believe that the body doesn’t start keeping track until it’s light out. I know. Weird. But it does seem to hold true for us. We’ve got a pretty hard day ahead of us tomorrow and with my concepts of darkness being a free spot on energy expension, we’ve decided to leave 2 hours before sunrise just so we can log those two hours of physical difficulty without the body really knowing about it. You know… sneak it past it, in the dark of the night. The stuff my mind goes to sounds kind of crazy as I’m typing this but I have to think it’s the case of pushing both physically and mentally father than usual that has brought me here.

So…. back to that last hour that hands down is hard, regardless of what preceded it or for how long….

If the head would just leave the body alone this wouldn’t happen. The two need to be separated. That’s all there is to that. Susan thought a time out for the mind could be a plan. Now, just to incorporate that idea….

Daily routine and we’re not the only ones… all of the walls from where we’ve stayed have spots on the walls right where the feet hit.

6 or 7 hours a day is a long time to spend wandering in and out of your thoughts. Hopefully tomorrow something a tad more brilliant will surface, but for now, I’m just trying to keep the mind from over communicating with the body and starting to spread rumors that the body is tired, an hour before I THINK it is. For the record, our 7 hour day tomorrow is now being called 8 hours. Shifty.

From country to city (San Juan de Ortega to Burgos)…I prefer the country…

Silhouetted pilgrim in the morning sunrise…

Today started out with an hour of walking under the faint light of a full moon (with headlamps to help). I’m not sure there is a more peaceful and inspiring way to begin a day. It was so quiet that all I could hear was my own breathing and the sound of my boots hitting the dirt and stone pathway. There was a couple ahead of us, which did give us a sense of comfort as the yellow arrows that give us our direction, were hard to spot. The guy ahead of us stopped to warn us of a cattle grate, which had some pretty big gaps. Given that it was dark out, it could have been a disaster, or a sprained ankle, had we not been wearing the headlamps or had he not given us warning. He was a good pilgrim.

We meandered through small, charming towns stopping at the first one for a coffee because our hotel had nothing but a coffee vending machine, which we were forewarned about from the Austrailians…. all cold and not drinkable. It was a charming little restaurant that was quite busy with only a woman and her husband working there. Still, the cafe con leche was made one cup at a time and the orange juice hand squeezed. I admire the work and dedication they put forth in eating good food. Nothing seems rushed.

We meandered through the beautiful landscape that we’ve become quite spoiled with, stopping along the way for a fruit and cheese lunch. Every day seems to be prettier than the last… but today didn’t end that way… things turned south for the last 4 plus hours of our walk to Burgos. There was more than one route to take today and although we never saw a sign that gave options, we also didn’t pay much heed to the guide book’s warning of of various paths to take. Needless to say, the route we chose, or that chose us I suppose, as neither of us remember a choice, wasn’t the best. It took us past the airport, alongside a highway and down a busy street filled with factories. I felt like we had walked along side I-35 to the downtown airport then hit the industrial section of town. The scenery was not what we have grown accustomed to and having cars honking while we dashed across highways, didn’t feel good at all. The shift change at the Bridgestone Tire facory on the outskirts of Burgos was the most interesting thing we saw… all the guys headed to their cars with their lunch boxes while the new shift of workers came in. I swear, it had to of taken 10 minutes to walk past the factory… it was that big. We both wondered several times if we were even still ON the Camino but eventually passed a German man we had met earlier who said,
“The Camino is a metaphor for life, isn’t it? And this would be the not so good part.”

Good grief, did we walk ourselves all the way to Las Vegas???

This was not a pretty part of our journey….

Well said, German friend.

Burgos is a big city. We should eat well tonite.

True confession… once to Burgos, this is how we got to our hotel… via cab. It was a 15 minute ride, so no telling how much longer we would have been walking. We had already walked 27 km and were beat. I think we both were initially reluctant as it seemed like “cheating,” but we chose right.

A whole lotta better today….

What a difference a good night’s sleep makes… the day before, in Najera, there was a religious celebration of sorts taking place with a lot of music, dancing and revelry in the main square until nearly 5 am. It was so loud, that there were times I thought they had entered our room. They didn’t, but much of the celebrating was right below our room. Spaniards have a different clock than we do and Susan and I still don’t feel like we’ve cracked the code on it. They eat late, at least 10:00 or later, kids and all, and seem to get up at the “normal” time. The towns shut down in the afternoon (shops anywhere from 2 or 3 in the afternoon until 7 or 8 at night, when they open again until 10 then close for dinner and the night. I’m intrigued, but kind of exhausted just thinking about it. Towns literally feel like ghost towns when we’re walking through them… still asleep? Just quiet? Or afternoon siestas? They do take their siestas seriously and given that their nights last so long, I’d guess it is a necessity. Last night in Santo Domingo, there was no celebration, no music, no fireworks, no cathedral bells and so a very good night’s sleep was had by all. Or at least by Susan and I. Thank you, España.

We are finding our routine… our rhythm, our pace, our schedule and our favorite snacks to get us through it all. I’m concluding that it takes 4 days for the body to say, “OK, I get it. I see the pattern and know the routine.” I feel stronger, have no blisters, feel like I’m in overall pretty good shape and am not really sore, but it seems that no matter the distance, one hour before arrival, my feet begin to protest, and I can hardly blame them. Boots off is a highlight of the day, followed of course by legs up the wall and a manic devouring of whatever snacks we collected throughout the day. We’ve been leaving early, on the Camino by 7, which of course has us wanting dinner at 4, which in this crazy, late night of eating country, simply isn’t going to happen. Thank goodness for snacks and the pilgrim dinners that we can usually find by 6 or 7.

The people we’ve met, the stories we’ve heard and the incredible scenery we’ve paced our way though – THIS is the beauty of the Camino. From the rainbow that presented itself yesterday, right when I seemed to need a push, to the man who poured some peanuts in my hand as he passed me today, just when I was realizing how hungry I was (peanuts in Spain are far better than any I’ve ever had before…) to the encouragement felt simply from hearing the words, “Buen Camino,” it’s all magic of the Camino. Today, for the first time, I listened to my iPod. Watching the long road ahead of me, sprinkled with pilgrims, most walking alone, while listening to Spanish guitar music, brought tears to my eyes. Everyone here is here for a reason, some probably won’t realize that reason until long off of the Camino. It touches me deeply and inspires me profoundly.

I’m blessed beyond words, to be able to take this journey both with Susan, and alone.

Pack envy.

While seated on the floor in the Atlanta airport (to access the outlet for charging), I noticed the woman seated nearby’s backpack, which had a Camino patch on it. I asked her if she was walking the Camino. She is. All of a sudden we had so much to talk about and she’s my new best friend in the Atlanta airport. This quick and instant connection was one of my favorite parts of walking the Camino and it made me happy to see it return before even getting to Spain. Another woman, also with a pack with a Camino patch, joined us, and asked if we’d watch her pack while she went to fill her water bottle. Her pack was small. I mean really small. Woman #1 looked at the pack, then looked at her pack then asked me, “Is there such a thing as pack envy?” I then asked her how much her pack weighed, a pretty standard conversation opener on the Camino, and she said, with a somewhat discouraging tone, “16 pounds.”.

“Oh yeah….there is definitely such a thing,” said the girl whose pack was now tipping in at 18 ish pounds. The ish covers the hair conditioner and the extra scarf I added this morning on a crazy whim.

She then said, “I added my hair conditioner last minute…. oh and some mascara and some blush and I’m feeling kind of guilty about that.”

The Camino comraderie has already begun. I didn’t feel so alone as I boarded my flight to Madrid, knowing that there were at least 3 of us headed to the Camino and I sure felt more justified in the last minute addition of the small bottle of conditioner to my pack. It really did feel like I was home again.

Susan arrives in Madrid tonite then we take the bus to Logroño in the morning and will begin walking the next day. I’m clean, my clothes are clean and my feet are blister free. Time to get this party started.

Packing, unpacking and readying myself for the Camino.

Looking much smaller now that it’s squished into stuff sacks. And lighter too, right?

Never before I have spent so much time packing such a small amount of stuff to be gone for such a long time. In a few days, I’m headed back to walk the Camino in Spain with my sister, Susan, finishing what we started last year, with approximately 400 miles left. The big changes we’re making this year is that we have decided to carry our gear rather than have it carried for us, while we carried a small day pack to hold the day’s necessities. Suffice to say, the packing, or more accurately, unpacking, has become quite a challenge. What it boils down to is being forced to make the decision between want and need with each and every item before it is put into the pack. The difference between want and need easily came into play when I took the pack (newly named armoire, or arm for short), for a spin. That cute gray striped shirt? Want. The bottle of hair conditioner? Again, want. Who knew that I really needed so little? (heads up, I’ll have variations of the same outfit in all photos for 30 days and my hair will be an unconditioned fright…). And I’m not done with the thinning yet. What I won’t be stingy with is the water, and at 4 pounds a gallon (the size of my hydration bladder), it will claim 1/5th of the weight. I couldn’t help but think of Cheryl Strayed’s 50 pound pack in her book, “Wild” and how she had to back herself into as it was too heavy for her to pick up and put on her back. My newly lightened pack seems more like a small clutch bag in comparison.

Several people have asked me why we decided to carry our own stuff rather than have it schlepped for us daily, and recently, while on a local trail and 7 miles in, I wondered that very thing, but only for a split second. This is the right decision. No looking back. No regrets. To me it represents getting a handle on what is really necessary and what isn’t – both in life and on the Camino. One of my biggest takeaways after walking 100 miles on the Camino last year is what a metaphor for life it became. So many of the words that apply to life in a rather fluid sense, such as, “One foot in front of the other,” “You have more in your reserve tank than you even begin to tap into,” or “Life gives you what you need, when you need it,” became daily, very practical mantras for the both of us. I remember one day Susan pointing out where we were going to end up that day and seeing the barely visible wind turbine on the top of what I’d call a small mountain was a very daunting site, especially knowing that we’d be walking our way there. One foot in front of the other became my mantra that day. It was also what kept me in the moment, rather than than in the head game of: I want to be there NOW, it’s far, I’m bored, I’m not sure I can do it and why don’t we do beach vacations??? Carrying all of the “stuff” we will need for the next month figures into this for me. It feels simple, utilitarian and efficient. I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m going to want to do a major closet clean out when I get home, especially after having lived with so little. Just a hunch.

I’ve read a lot of Camino posts on various forums and have come to the conclusion that there appears to be a lot of lying going on out there regarding pre-Camino packing and weights. One woman said her pack weighed in at just under 12 pounds. This same woman’s packing list included a sarong and a merino wool sweater for “evening wear.” Good grief. I won’t even add in my tinted Burt’s Bees for my “evening wear” simply because of the weight! There is NO way her pack could have weighed 12 pounds if she brought other clothes, even if the sarong was made out of net. The numbers simply don’t work, unless maybe she doesn’t drink water or wear socks. I’m feeling pretty darn proud of my pack, tipping in at 19.6 pounds with a full bladder of water.

That weight just happens to be what my middle child, Grant, weighed when he was almost a year old. All of my family know that I spent most of his first year with him in a front pack or perched on my hip. My kids truly believe that that is where the saying “Carry Grant” comes from. He was fussy. He wanted to be carried and so we did, or more accurately, I did. Hey, I’ve got this! I’ve done this before only this time my pack won’t be crying AND I won’t have to feed it! Who knew what preparation I was giving myself for 28 years in the future?

I’ve gone out for the past 5 days, on a local bike trail, to test the pack, but more importantly test my body carrying the pack. I really do believe that after taking out a couple of things, on the next walk I’m going to have a “holy cow, now that feels great!” kind of reaction. That’s not exactly happened, but the carrying has gotten easier, and probably not because I took out the night shirt and hair conditioner, but because bit by bit by tiny bit, I’m getting stronger.

I look a little over-exuberant on my local bike path decked out in hiking boots and a frame pack and the expressions on the faces of people I pass reinforce that. OK, not really, no one bats an eye, but that’s how I feel. I did have a little girl ask me yesterday where I was going and not wanting to bore her or the woman who was with her (her grandmother?) with the whole pilgrimage or the Camino or even the Spain thing, I answered her, “To the parking lot.” She looked confused. Poor tyke. I should have said something a little bit more exotic, like Montana… or Nebraska…anything but the parking lot.

I’ve probably got a couple more rounds of taking everything out of the pack, removing a few things, then hesitating and adding at least one back in then re-stuffing it all back into the pack. It seems to be my hobby these days and a necessary part of the process, not just in the weight control department, but in mentally preparing and processing exactly what it is that I’ve got ahead of me. That being said, I’ve heard countless times that the Camino will provide you with what you need, when you need it. I think I’ll take out more stuff…

IMG_3468 (1) — Does all that stuff make my pack look big?

Yoga teacher training, 3rd module. It’s a wrap.

With Max Strom, my yoga teacher training teacher.

A few weeks ago I completed the final module of my yoga teacher training, 200 hour certification. I’m feeling pretty darn proud of myself for getting to this point as I came very close to not finishing it at all. I thought seriously about not returning for the final module and had come up with a gamut of excuses to justify what amounted to quitting, although I never could quite use that word. It wasn’t easy for me to face the truth as to the real reason that I debated “quitting” and that was fear. I was afraid. Plain and simple. I had a pretty good idea that during the 3rd and final module we would have to teach the other 24 students in the class, whether just a few postures or the worst case scenario, an entire class. We hadn’t been told what to expect specifically, so my mind took the worst case scenario and began to run a marathon with it. That’s when the small seed of stage fright developed into a full-sized, still growing, demon, who clearly thought I would have been better off just cutting my loses and quitting.

As the days passed, Max, our teacher, began to ask for volunteers to teach various postures to the class. Looking back, my best move would have been to be the one to go first simply to get it over with, but I couldn’t quite get that hand of mine up to volunteer, so instead, I began the process of making myself “invisible” by hunkering down over my notebook with the pretense that I was taking very important and time sensitive notes. Of course in reality I was working diligently at avoiding any kind of eye contact which could send the false signal of being volunteer ready. This is an old trick that I learned in junior high algebra, where I seldom had the right answer, or any answer at all, so would bury my head in my book with hopes of not being noticed. The system must have had some success as it traveled with me to high school (history class) then onto college (anything related to math). It’s not all that different from the child who closes his eyes to become invisible, only now I know. I still show. Seriously? I’m still doing that? What are you, nine??? Those old defense mechanisms that come into play when pushing against doing something that makes you uncomfortable, are pretty darn strong and have a good memory to boot.

Deep down, I knew full well that I could teach a posture or a series of postures after years of practicing yoga and two modules of taking that learning to a far deeper level, but there was a whisper that kept looping through my mind that said, “Yea, you can, but do you want to??” Again, my stage fright fears had taken control of the wheel and I just seemed to be along for the ride.

Walking seemed to be a great compliment to the long days on my yoga mat, with both note taking and practicing, and so I began the habit of an early morning walk at dawn, then again in the evening after class. It felt good to let go of everything, especially the yoga, and let my mind wander. I was pretty deep into that wandering one evening when I almost stepped on a small field mouse that had come onto the sidewalk and decided to stop dead center in front of me. Now for those of you who don’t know me well enough to know some of my personal “quirks,” I must confess…. I am afraid of mice. Very afraid. I’d be much happier (maybe “happy” is not the right word…) to find a snake in my basement, rather than a mouse. That kind of afraid. So, to see a mouse just inches from my feet was enough to get my heart beating faster! I started to slowly and most cautiously walk around him, but then hesitated and decided that that it was so odd that the lil’ fella had stopped right in front of me, that maybe he had something to teach me and so I stopped. Seriously? I was afraid of this tiny fella? If it came down to fist on fist, I’d win hands down…his 1 1/2 inches of height maybe to my 65 inches, for sure. IF he could have talked, I’m just sure he would have said, “You’ve got to be kidding…you’re afraid of ME??? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” OK, I’m giving this mouse a lot of credit and probably far more brain cells than he actually had, but somehow, there was a message I was supposed to get that evening and the mouse seemed to be the delivery boy. I also recognized that this was all very timely given what I was facing during the yoga and that there was a lot more going on here than my encounter with a little mouse.

The rest of my walk home I thought about the mouse and although I didn’t magically get over my whopping fear of mice, it did make me realize that so much of what I have come to fear is nothing more than a huge creation of something that may or may not exist….all taking place in my mind. Kudos for the creativity, mind, but come on… could you slow it down just a little bit? The fear of my getting up in front of 24 people, who I now call my friends, is the equivalent of my seeing a pack of rats wielding weapons rather than the reality of the little 1 1/2 inch tall field mouse. My brain had become a fear-growing petri dish and I had given it just the right conditions to flourish – a constant flow of irrational thoughts. The mouse was simply the metaphor for me to understand that. Now, I’m still not going to say I like mice or think they’re cute or want anything to do with them, but having one stop in my path and show me his littleness to my bigness had given me a dose of reality. Maybe the fear is not of the creature itself, but rather its method of a startling introduction to me while dashing across the floor of a dimly lit kitchen. Maybe my whole mouse/rodent fear needed to be re-evaluated.

And that’s when it hit me. What was I really afraid of when it came to putting myself in front of a group of people and teaching them yoga? I had no idea except to say that I was afraid of the unknown and until I knew what it felt like while in the throes of it, I really didn’t know. Having made that declaration to myself, the next morning I proudly raised my hand when Max began to solicit volunteers, and taught not only one posture, but a short series. I needed to look that fear in the eye, embrace it, and move on. Better yet, I needed to see that it was small, maybe 1 1/2 inches tall, just like the mouse.

I’ve been honest with my reporting thus far, so need to add that what I so quickly volunteered for was a series of postures that began while on the back, meaning that my audience was on their backs and were staring up at the ceiling rather than at me. A whole lot easier, but I’ll take it as it still “counted.” And surprise, surprise, it wasn’t bad at all. In fact, it was kind of fun.

If I can tell an audience of even one reader at this point that I had a pretend conversation with a mouse while walking down a busy sidewalk then really, standing in front of 24 new friends and teaching a few postures, doesn’t seem the least bit scary or even vulnerable in comparison. I’ve already covered my bases on that simply by sharing the absurdity of all of this.

Now that the 3rd and final training module is over, I’m feeling very grateful that I didn’t quit and decided to stick it out. I completed the 200 hours and in the process of learning a lot about alignment, postures, breath work and spine lengthening, I learned a heck of a lot about myself, namely that stage fright is alive and well and is more than happy to do the steering, if allowed. I jokingly told Max one day that yoga teacher training was making me taller, (after taking a long-shadowed photo of myself during one of my evening walks). I’m beginning to think that there may have been a thread of truth to my joke and that maybe, just maybe, I grew a little taller during the whole process of this training – one posture at a time.

On the road again… this time, the Flint Hills…

Last week, because being in my house was so miserable, I got in my car and drove. This was on the heels of my 16 hour driving home adventure from Colorado 3 days earlier, so the pump was primed. I’ve got to back up a bit here and explain the details of my normally very happy, peaceful and comfortable home….

I had new hardwood floors installed in my family room, which meant that all the furniture in that room had to be moved to other rooms. I have an old house with lots of small rooms, narrow hallways and tight corners, making it a disaster when it comes to moving furniture from one room to another. The result was having my furniture stacked and stuffed everywhere, which was an adventure on the first day, but midway into the 2nd day, after climbing over a couch then having to walk across a kitchen table just to get to the kitchen, it was no longer fun. I also had to go outside and walk around the house to enter the garage because the interior door was blocked. This did not fare well for someone who is constantly running back into the house because I’ve forgotten something. Passageways were so narrow that I had to bring groceries inside by the handfuls as there wasn’t enough room to get both the grocery bag and me through the narrow slots between the furniture . Add to that, no internet, no TV and really no place to sit, short of the dining room table or my bed. I tried hard not to complain, too much, but that, for 6 very long days, was the edge of my limits. Of course the silver lining to the whole mess was my desperate need to escape my house, hence my wander through the Flint Hills.

I love the Flint Hills, yet have only stopped and enjoyed them a handful of times. Every time I get a glimpse of them from I-70 during my many Colorado trips, I make a mental note to make them a destination, not a pass through, and so this time, that was exactly what I did. And just like my wander through Eastern Colorado and Kansas several days ago, I went old school and dug out the atlas for guidance.

Of course I chose the hottest day of the year, with readouts hovering between 104 and 106 on my car, making getting out and wandering around not all that much fun, but I suffered through, took some photos and when I had enough, made my way to Cottonwood Falls. It is one of the first settlements in Kansas and it doesn’t look like it has gotten much bigger since its beginnings, tipping in with a population of just over 1,000 folks. It has one of the most stunning courthouses I’ve ever seen, which claims the honors of being THE oldest courthouse in continual use west of the Mississippi. I’m not a history buff, but I am a cool building buff and seeing this beautiful building for the 3rd time, still got to me.

It was just after 5:00 when I got into town and the streets were pretty empty of both cars and people. I do love wandering around these small towns, especially when they are so eerily quiet. I lived in a couple of very small towns as a little girl and have to think that I’m tapping into a vague memory of something that feels very familiar, but that I have no distinct memory of. From Cottonwood Falls, I drove to Florence, KS, simply because it sounded like a pretty place and I didn’t feel quite “done” with my exploring. Florence, Kansas, population under 500, was even quieter than Cottonwood Falls, but it wasn’t the the town of Florence that became the gift that night, but rather what I found enroute…. a small school house, sitting by itself in an open field. I took a quick look then drove on into Florence, saving a more thorough look around for when the sun was just a little bit lower in the sky.

Don’t be thinking this is some place. It’s not. It’s “Someplace Else.”

I’ve always had a thing for metal that’s been rusted by nature…

The simple beauty of the schoolhouse in this beautiful setting speaks for itself in the photo. It was on a quiet road so I was able to park the car, turn up the music and simply sit and enjoy what was in front of me under the changing light. It’s so easy to get caught up in the frenzy of life, whether justified or not, and to be able to simply sit and enjoy the quiet scenery felt very healing. On a side note, I read about the school when I got home and learned that the Bichet School had opened its doors on Jan. 1, 1896 and served the French speaking children in nearby Florence. It closed in 1946 when it was down to two students, siblings, who then purchased it at auction for $600. It has continuously remained in the family ever since. At the very end of the information regarding the school was this:

Visit Instructions: You must post a photo with your detailed description of your visit.

I hope my descriptions were detailed enough…

The party was over once the sun went down and with a full tank of gas, I drove home. I learned my lesson on that a few nights earlier, when on a very remote road, I found my gas gauge moving to the left a little faster than I had anticipated.

For someone who has never really enjoyed driving, there has been a shift here, which is a bit of a surprise to me. I would have never guessed a few years ago that I’d find comfort and inspiration, along with a creative outlet, simply by getting in my car and driving to a rather vague, make it up as I go along, destination. Throughout this process, I’ve discovered not only the beauty of a “destination-less roadtrip,” but am learning quite a bit about myself also as I wander through and STOP at locations that I once considered “drive through only” areas. The beauty is there, but sometimes it means having to look beyond initial expectations to see it.

One of my friends told me that she thought it might be a good idea to put a chip in me in case I’m ever lost. I laughed, but now am thinking that maybe that’s not such a bad idea.

From the mountains to the plains… discovering new territory.

Last week, on my drive back to KC from CO, I decided that I needed to mix things up. I needed an adventure. Google maps doesn’t understand “adventure route,” so I had to go old school on this one. I got out the atlas. After driving back and forth from KC to CO on I-70 for the past 3 years, I’ve got that route down pat and have settled into a pretty set routine of stops, simply because it works and I know where the Starbucks are. But this time I wanted to drive on roads I had never been on and discover towns I had never been through. It was the best decision I could have made!

Discovery #1. You can easily and more importantly, SAFELY pull over to the side of a quiet two lane highway and get out and take photos without worrying about cars zipping by you at 80 MPH, as they do on I-70. Yes, I’ve done that on I-70, but always with trepidation, and knowing full well that what I am doing is NOT a good idea. But today, on Highway 36, with such light traffic that I could literally count the cars I saw in an hour on one hand, it was easy, and safe.

The Colorado Rockies are majestic, there’s no denying that. They are bold and beautiful and literally have brought tears to my eyes on more than one occasion. Kansas doesn’t have mountains. Hills, yes. Mountains, no. But what Kansas does have is a much quieter beauty that shows itself in views that seem endless of prairie grass or wheat or corn or any other crop, pushed up against an endless big blue sky. It’s subtle – a whisper that taunts you to pull over and have a closer look, or better yet, a more thoughtful look. After a few weeks of hiking through mountains, the plains of Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas felt like a very welcome respite for me…. a long, deep sigh.

Discovery #2. More than once, when wandering through some of the very, very small towns on my route that day, I felt oddly conspicuous. I had a sense, even without seeing my license plate, that they knew I wasn’t from around there. Maybe it was the camera, or my quiet sense of awe, but they knew and I had to respect that. I’m sure I’d be the same way. I went into a gas station in Atwood, Kansas that had a Subway sandwich shop attached and saw a group of women, probably in their 70’s and 80’s, all in their Sunday church clothes, all sharing Subway sandwiches at a big table in the front of the restaurant. I’m sure it is a weekly meeting for them. I found myself hovering by the chip aisle just to get a better look. It was a charming scene and I couldn’t help but stare. It felt like a scene right out of the 60’s, especially given their clothing. Oh what I would have given to have gotten an invite to join them, but then again, I was hardly dressed appropriately and then there was the detail of them not knowing or caring who I was, so I just meandered near the chips and spied for several minutes instead.

Discovery #3. I realized that I really do love the process of discovery, and if there is a little bit of an adventure involved, better yet. This still kind of surprises me because I was such a scaredy cat kid. My sister, Robin and my best friend, Kim, and I, when we were in the 1st and 2nd grade, decided to start a company called the “Whirlybird Dog Catchers.” As I recall, there was a show about some sort of rescuers on TV with whirlybird in the name, hence the name of our “company.” (I”m sure we would not have had any idea what a “whirlybird” even was had it not been for the show). We had to improvise on the helicopters so would pretend to be jumping out of them once they had landed, then would run to the site where there was a stray dog. It was the jump then run part that seemed more important than the obvious, which was catching the wandering dogs, and we’d practice that element over and over again. The “catching” of the wandering dogs, not so much, because there was one problem with our little company… I was afraid of dogs, except for my own. Our “company” didn’t last long, the whole fear of dogs hampering the goal a bit, but we sure did have fun as adventure always followed a run from a helicopter, didn’t it?, whether the helicopter was a real one or a pretend one. We were terribly naive but cleverly creative and I’m so glad now, some 55 years later, that no one (i.e. no parents), told us our ideas for a company were silly. We also went into the diamond making business that involved burying a charcoal briquette, but that’s another story, and no, it didn’t work. Oddly enough, those were the memories that came to mind as I was stopping my way across eastern Colorado and western Kansas with my camera in hand, looking for the right shot and making a new discovery in the process. Maybe I was getting a nudge from that 6 year old girl who was always looking to discover… something… anything…

A few days earlier, I had seen a write up on a place somewhere in KS that a sculptor from California had gone to for the summer and had carved several limestone fence posts into beautiful works of art, mostly of faces. So, I decided to try and find the fence posts, which took me a good 2 hours off track. I did find ONE of the fence posts, parked my car and started to make my way over to it. There was a deep ditch between me and the post and as I started stepping down into the thigh high grasses, I realized that it was a very bad idea. I was in a no cell phone reception area, was wearing sandals, had no idea if that ditch was filled with water and saw more than one sign that said (in a very emphatic tone) PRIVATE PROPERTY. And so feeling like my wandering for the past 2 plus hours was for naught, I retreated to my car, checked the atlas and decided on my route home from there. I’ve got to admit, I rather loved the idea of not knowing exactly where I was headed or what I’d see, but knew I was headed in the general direction of East so I was making progress….

When it got dark, and my sunset photo ops were over, or any other photo ops for that matter, I was done, and ready to be home, but unfortunately I was still a few house from home. My normally 9 or 9 1/2 hour journey, door to door, was now inching its way towards 13 hours, which again was fine given my objective that day, which was not efficiency or speed, until I ran out of daylight,and almost out of gas, which was another problem.

Discovery #4 Gas up, whenever and wherever you can on a road trip where you’re making it up as you go along. I always gas up when my tank hits 1/2 when I’m on I-70, simply because the coffee to bathroom break ratio and timing makes it a necessity, but all of those rules seemed to fly out the window when I was traveling seat of the pants, making it up as I went along, as I inched my way across Colorado and Kansas. Everything seemed fine until it became dark out and then scary began to take over. I’ve got a reading on my car that tells me how many miles the car can go before running out of gas. Great! I had 130 miles left and home was 95 miles away. I could relax. Yet I continued to check that read out and realized that the miles remaining seemed to be ticking off at twice the rate of my odometer. Toyota, could you explain this to me??? It’s dark, I’m on a two lane highway, no cell phone coverage, and my gas gauge is hovering between 1/4 tank and you’re in trouble. I turned off the air conditioner. I turned off the radio. I coasted as much as I could, while maintaining my speed, thinking that I could improve my gas mileage, even the tiniest bit. The road signs became so infrequent that they really were nonexistent because there were no towns where I was. I re-grouped, wrapped my head around sleeping in my car on the side of the highway, and how bad could that be, right? Down to the fumes later, and I came upon the town of Burlingame and a Casey’s General Store became my oasis, my bright light, my I can relax now. Crisis averted and I was so happy I bought an armload of snacks, turned the radio and air conditioner on and cruised home a happy girl.

Discovery #5. If you’re looking for quick, efficient, straightforward, predictable journey then taking the backroads and making up a 670 mile journey as you go along, would not be a good idea. But, if you want to discover something new around every turn and delay yourself in the process from a 9 1/2 hour journey to a 16 hour journey then I’d say go for it, but only on the condition that you allow yourself to slow down and observe, discover and absorb. I can’t believe it has taken me this long to begin to discover the other part of the state that I have spent most of my life in. There’s a lot out there and discovering a tiny bit of it was a lot of fun for me. I’ve done this all over the state of Colorado, so it was especially nice to make a discovery a little closer to home.

I don’t think this will be the last time I do this, but now with some experience under my belt, I know that timing for daylight and fueling up wherever there IS gas are priorities. Oh, and not only one, but two back up batteries for my camera, and a bevy of snacks and food as my thoughts of charming roadside diners never came to fruition. Here’s to road trips… better yet, here’s to road trips in your own big back yard. I’ll do it again. In fact not even a week later I DID do it again! Only this time it was simply a wander through the Flint Hills with a drive home that same night… but that’s another story and another blog post.

Lost and found on Torreys and Grays peaks. Me.

My first hike of the season, which was several weeks ago for me this year, always conjures up memories of my first solo summer spent in Colorado 3 years ago, otherwise known as my 66 day experiment. Because of unforeseen circumstances, I ended up with condo rental for 2 1/2 months in a town where I knew no one. One of my first blog posts explains this in further detail, along with how I came to buy a place in that very town a short 2 months after my arrival; something I had no intention of doing before I made the trip. It truly was my summer of discovery and growth and one I remember fondly every time my boots hit the dirt, but it didn’t start out well.

After going through a difficult break up, I felt like my heart had been ripped from my chest, stomped on and mushed back into the cavity where it originally sat. The easier feeling for me at that time was to go to anger, rather than sadness. Anger has a fueling effect, sadness, not so much, and it was that anger that became my teacher that summer and hiking became the catalyst for me to learn, not about hiking and how to do it better, safer and stronger, but rather, about who it was that those hiking boots were carrying. I discovered myself. It certainly wasn’t the easiest way for me to arrive at that discovery, but it was what it was and I look back now with tremendous gratitude for things did not go as I had planned or expected.

One of the biggest ah ha moments of that summer for me was when I climbed Torreys and Grays – 2 fourteeners (mountains whose summits are over 14,000 feet and who Colorado claims 52). I had been advised to get to the trailhead EARLY as it’s a very popular climb with limited parking. When you tell a Virgo, who is a tad bit anxious about doing the whole thing solo in the first place, to get to the trail head early, plans of a pre-dawn arrival are not out of the question. One can never be too early or too safe, or too prepared, especially when facing a 14er alone, with no more information about it than an overheard conversation and photos and text from a guide book. So, at barely 5:00 a.m., I began my 30 minute car journey to the trailhead, the easiest part, or so I thought. All was going as planned and I was feeling excited with anticipation and a bit smug with what I had decided to tackle, until the road got narrower and narrower with deeper and deeper pot-holes, looking more like a trail than a road and certainly not accessible without 4 wheel drive. Oh and to add to the scene unfolding, it was still dark, there were no other cars on the road and I had no cell phone service. No longer did I have AAA for my back up plan. I could hear my pulse.

In all the wandering through the state of Colorado that I did that summer, it was that moment, on that dark path of a road, alone, that comes to mind when I think about what really scared me and got my heart to race. It is also that moment, when I decided not to turn around, that has influenced several decisions since when I’ve opted not to turn around, whether it be a hike or a life decision.

Once I made it to the dark and very empty parking lot, my car being the ONLY car, I sat for a few minutes and wondered how smart it was of me to continue. Do I sit and wait for other people? Do I scrap my plan and go back the way I came, Buick-sized potholes and all? With a combination of pride and perhaps a wee bit of stupidity, I decided that I had enough invested in the whole operation to stay with the plan. I grabbed my pack and strapped on my headlamp because it still dark out and started down a trail that I had never been on before and knew very little about. Right this moment, some three years later, while I type this, I’m thinking…”Seriously? You did THAT?’ It is the “THAT” that comes to mind at some point during every single hike I’ve done since and I’ve got to confess, I’m in search of the “THAT” as much as I seek out the views, crazy as that sounds.

I walked alone following the small beam of light from my head lamp until the sun came up. I’m guessing 10 or 15 minutes, but really have no idea, but it seemed long and lonely and given that I had never hiked in the dark, scary. I couldn’t help but continue to ask myself if this whole idea was really very smart, yet my legs kept walking forward. Had I stopped, I’m guessing I would have turned around. Eventually, I reached a fork on the trail and couldn’t remember what I had been told… go up Grays first, or Torreys?

Early morning.

While I stood at that crossroads, and surveyed the incredible early morning scenery, I saw a small group of people in the far distance, making their way towards me. This was my cue to sit down, rearrange the things in my pack, have a snack, take a photo, waste some time and then when they’d make their way to me, I’d stand up, watch which fork they’d take and casually follow them like it was no big deal..

“I was just catching my breath, organizing my stuff, grabbing a photo and wow, what a coincidence that all of you just happened by!”

That’s what I had planned, but I was so excited to see life on that trail that I greeted them overly enthusiastically and asked which route they were taking, as I hadn’t yet decided. They told me Torreys and did I want to hike up with them? Well… sure…. !! Honestly, they had no idea. Their generosity had saved me. We summitted the first peak about an hour later, ate our lunch (again, they had no idea what a gift they had become to me) then made our way across the saddle and up to the summit of the 2nd peak. While seated and catching our breath, I got a text. Now mind you, I’ve been hiking for a few hours, had climbed around 3,000 feet, and now sat at an elevation of over 14, 000 feet (14,267 and 14,270 respectively), literally in a different world and with a very different mind set and I get a text??? It was my daughter, Emery, reminding me to buy coconut water before her visit the next day as it helped her to adjust to the altitude. My new best friends asked if all was OK and when I told them, with a mixed tone of exasperation and are you kidding me?, they all looked puzzled and said, “Well, if it helps her, you really should get it for her.” By the way, they were her age, so this all seemed very normal to them, and so I began making a mental note of my to do list while enjoying my lunch at the top of a 14,000 foot mountain. I had to laugh, but was quick to reassure them that by all means, I’d follow through with her request. I think they were worried about her.

Crossing the saddle

One down, one to go…

Seven hours from my dark, lonely start, I was back in my car, making my way through the 4WD potholes, which no longer seemed the size of Buicks, but VW’s at best. Daylight and accomplishments made it all look a lot better and far less scary and who cares that I didn’t have cell phone service? I felt a whole lot stronger than the person who had driven in a short 7 hours ago. I think I just might have been a little bit taller also.

Once home, I put my head in a bag of ruffle potato chips, with a 1/2 a tub of french onion dip and a 3 beer chaser because when you hike a 14er you get to eat anything that sound good and so I did. I had set that precedent after my first 14er climb a few weeks ago, so was simply following protocol. While immersed in my delightful dinner, I couldn’t help but wonder just who that girl was who had pushed through so much that scared her yet kept on going when quitting would have been a whole lot easier. She wasn’t someone I had seen in a very long time and I was hopeful I’d see her again.

That summer, without planning on it or anticipating it, became my summer to push my personal boundaries and enter into my fear zone so many times that it began to feel comfortable. By the end of the summer, I had logged over 135 miles in my boots and climbed 31,500 vertical feet, in search of my boundaries, which thankfully kept moving just out of my reach, which kept me moving. It was as if my trusty old hiking boots had become my ruby red slippers and the heels had been clicked together, only this time, they took me out of Kansas and far away from my comfort zone and made me realize that just like the ruby red slippers, I had had the power with me all along. I just didn’t know it.

Go figure. I had to walk, climb and sweat my way up peak after peak after peak to finally become familiar with the person who was guiding those boots and time after time after exhausted time, I’d stop that summer during a hike, not to grab a photo or a drink or a snack or even some oxygen, but rather, I’d stop and try to absorb the moment of where I was and how far I’d come and the odd circumstances that had brought me to that point. Stopping to absorb on a hike or life for that matter, is never a bad idea.

So today and yesterday and the day before yesterday and every day I’ve hiked since that summer of MY coming of age, when I hesitate because I’m not sure I can do it or am I setting the bar too high? or for Pete’s sake why can’t I be content with walking around the neighborhood with a mountain backdrop?, I try my best to bring back that girl who drove down a dark road to a dark parking lot to a trail head where she had to strap on a headlamp to see the trail that she knew nothing about and say, Really? Seriously? Snap out of it. You’ve got this. And that… that right there, is what has made every bit of this journey a priceless experience for me.

Several times this past month, I’ve thought about a return trip to the Torreys and Grays peaks but have slowly come to realize that for me to venture up those two beautiful peaks for a 2nd time, would be less about experiencing their majesty and more about trying to reconnect with the girl who climbed them 3 summers ago and recreate an experience, which I know is impossible. I can’t recreate a first time experience the second time around, no matter how hard I try. Not surprising, those notions of a “re-climb” seem to come when I’m feeling insecure and am struggling to find my strength. For a split second, it feels like I just might be able to find it on the Torreys and Grays trail on an early morning, using my headlamp to guide me, because it was there once, as if I carelessly left it behind in a heap on the trail after stopping for a breath or a view and all I have to do is go retrieve it, stuff it securely into my pack and return home. Logically, I know it’s with me, somewhere in there, whether those beat up boots that are trying to be ruby red slippers are on my feet or on a trail or not. I just have to remember how to find it. Again.

Thanks, guys.