Holes In Thoughts: Hiking and laughing

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Hiking and laughing

Last Tuesday or Wednesday, when I was celebrating my Prop 301 money, I got into a conversation with Nyssa, one of Rachel's co-workers. It seems like every time I talk to her, I regret not hanging out with her more often. Admittedly, though, my social life has been severely stunted in the last few years due to overworking, and not having money. I promised her that we would get together on Friday, because she, Rachel and I all had most of the day free.

Apparently, between her, AZ and Rachel, the decision was made to go to Mount Lemmon and have a picnic. I was more than a bit excited; it certainly was improvement on hanging out watching cartoons or something.

Plus...

I was a Boy Scout from age 11 or so until I was about 16 or 17; my interest waned as I became more involved in school around 1997. Between those times, I hiked roughly 1,200 miles up and down and all around Arizona, Colorado, California, and New Mexico. Over 1,000 of those miles were with the same backpack that I still have. When I moved off to college in 1998, I stopped hiking primarily because I had no car or time.

I really only smelled pine trees only when visiting Rachel's relatives in Prescott, and on our honeymoon in Sedona (in 2004).

Naturally, I was looking forward to this trip.

Today, I finally got to walk around the woods with a backpack.

Today, I went hiking with Nyssa, AZ, and Rachel up and around Mount Lemmon.

Nyssa and AZ arrived at our place - after some harried cleaning, the place was surprisingly presentable - and brought some snacks. Rachel and I added some ourselves, and we packed our bags. We also introduced Nyssa to Caliente and Q, our cats. Q successfully removed some of Rachel's hand en route to hide under the couch; Caliente was cautiously polite. My crappy camera's batteries were dead, and I longed to have the new camera that I'd ordered not 48 hours previous (and, sadly, will have to wait a week more as it's out of stock). My Ricoh GX100 cannot arrive soon enough.

As it was quite hot today, we permitted our guests to cool off a bit before driving to the mountains.

We drove in the Bug, partly because I truly enjoy driving, because Nyssa's car was leaking oil, and because in the winter, I'd like to take the vehicle up while it's snowing - but would like to know what the terrain's like.

She did wonderfully. I'm so proud of my car; she has come so far and I feel like a proud daddy. About halfway up, we decided to play "spot the last cactus," as Mount Lemmon rises well above the saguaro-rich desert of Tucson. Unfortunately, we were distracted by our pleasant, idle conversations and hardly noticed them disappear...

About halfway to the trail head, we stopped at a rest stop. We were still in high desert, with scrubby brushes and large sandstone slabs alternately stacked like giant, poorly-made coins or surfboards. I rode one of the surfboards and regretted the lack of a camera. I ran up to the tiny peaks of rock to see the views as the girls headed straight to the tip of the point that looked over the valley. I had nearly forgotten what it was like to have the manic energy of the outdoors. As I caught up to the girls, Nyssa, Rachel, I ran and jumped and climbed up to the foremost point of the jutting rock and watched the landscape roll ahead of us forever. I again regretted my lack of a camera. AZ reminded us that she considered herself too clumsy to be trusted near sheer cliffs. Rachel gave the rest of us a scare by climbing out to the very edge and dropping down to an unseen ledge...

I hadn't used a latrine in forever and I'm pretty sure it's the first and last time I'll find the action novel or pleasant. Nyssa told us that someone, somewhere, had been caught climbing into the things to take pictures of people's butts. A somewhat thorough discussion of the topic ensued as we piled back into the car.

The weather improved, the trees grew, the curves of the road steepened and I performed one last, too-fast turn before we began to appreciate how far we had driven. We slowed as we saw the blackened spikes of thousands of burned trees from a forest fire a few years previous. The town at the top had been destroyed, and we pulled in to see many burned trees and many very new buildings; still, the forest floor was lush with ferns and grass and despite some of the agonizingly slow tourist drivers (Five miles per hour! I walk that fast!), we curved along the narrow avenue to our trail head.

Nyssa was usually our guide; she had been on the trail once or twice before. There was a weak and dirty but running stream that the path followed. We talked - alright I was jabbering for about 80% of the talking - but there were assorted stops and pauses to enjoy the landscape, point out something fuzzy: a chipmunk made a prominent appearance despite my constant inability to correctly identify wildlife. My Scout-taught wilderness skills were put to question, though I admitted that my study skills have always been quite consistently awful, including when I was quizzed as a boy on such things.

The smell of the burnt wood, the fresh air, the strong breeze, the new forest floor - it was wonderful. The sound of the wind pushing gently through the pine needles and ferns, the scare birds and occasional scampering of some unseen and some seen animals brought back some memories - when I wasn't overtaking the quiet rustles with the rumbling rambling of relating the memories myself. Rachel is rightly convinced I was starved for storytelling and conversation. While working at schools over the last year and a half, I've had few if any people to really talk to; I came close with my fellow Eastpointe High teacher Mr. Wahl, but the role of co-worker is a difficult one to truly shake.

We arrived at the top around four o'clock, as the sun was at a 45-degree angle in the sky. We picked a large, flat rock to set our blanket on in the shade. We had more food than we needed, set it out in the center and ate at our leisure. Salami, havarti and cheddar cheeses, hummus and pita, strawberries and chocolate, sparkling apple cider, crackers; all eaten at leisure and at random according to our whims. Our hike had made up happy gluttons, and we enjoyed it as much as we ought to have.

We also decided quite definitely that we would have to come back to go camping. Nyssa, who is from Salt Lake, had done a lot of hiking and camping, and agreed that we could bear the weight of supplies to accommodate our 'wussy' friends (Rachel, with bad knees, and AZ, with lupus). I am very happy about this.

We began packing up when we started getting a bit chilly and the sun began to sit lower in the sky. We walked back; AZ carried the bottle of apple cider instead of her water bottle. The effect was very... wino. On one level, I think we rather hoped a ranger would come along and accuse of us of drinking. Sadly, the paper sack it was in was unceremoniously destroyed by yours truly in an attempt to remove the top.

On the way down, among the pine and fresh air, we discussed Utah, my old Scout memories, Mormons, road trips, forest fires, and what, exactly, the perfect boob was.

Bliss.

I also got a ticket for not paying for the place; the fee is $5 and I'll have to mail it in. No problem. This was worth much more than $5 (actually, I suppose it was worth the $20 in food and $15 in gas as well). Incredibly, I realize that we actually were so broke we couldn't do this before; I appreciate the money, the car, and especially the friends.

We arrived at my place, and all three girls pretty much flopped onto the ground, catatonic. I felt great. I felt alive, and Nyssa was also feeling energetic (she had flopped face-first because her legs were all sweaty from the vinyl seats in my car). She mentioned that she owned the Animaniacs' first season.

Oh. Really. Animaniacs had been my tied-for-favorite show, along with Batman: The Animated Series, when I was in high school. I recognized, even then, that they were awesome on many levels besides that of a grade-school or high-school boy. But it had been years - a decade - since I had seen Animaniacs. I was all for it.

Eventually, after a shower and a bit of stretching, Rachel and I headed to Nyssa's house (AZ was dropped off at home by Nyssa went to bed). We ordered pizza. I tipped $10 on a $17 order. Nyssa was in her pajamas. Animaniacs was significantly better than I had remembered.

Today was perfect.

posted by Steve @ 1:35 AM

1 Comments:

At 5/3/08 23:01, Ratih said…

It's always nice to hear how someone is having his perfect day. It sort of boosts your spirit. Thx 4 sharing. Greetings from Indonesia.