Loss

I found out a few days ago that a man who I think of as my second father (JR) passed away, after a short bout with cancer. I'll be traveling to Kansas City next Wednesday to join up with my friend-since-3rd-grade Sheri, and we'll drive together (in her Prius, thank the stars above) to Dallas for the funeral on Thursday. Can I just say that I'm not looking forward to the weather?

JR has been a part of my life since I was 5 years old, when my parents met JR and his wife (BR) at a Mensa meeting. Their children were approximately the same ages, so the friendship among the parents meant friendship among the kids. Years followed of sleepovers, co-family camping trips, week-long vacations camping on Padre Island, weekends at The Woods (their 40-acre plot of land, with a POND!), Scouting opportunities, etc.

JR taught me to shoot a gun safely, that life in the summer without air conditioning can be liveable (barely), and that dancing the fox trot can be fun.

He was as close to a nudist as it comes -- when I took Slogger out to JR and BR's house to meet them, I warned him that we would likely see JR in the skimpiest of Speedo's, rolled down to a mere whisper of cloth. Slogger laughed, but my prediction was accurate. I'll always picture him tanned and thin, wearing his tiny red Speedo, with a Swisher Sweet hanging from his mouth, laughing.

I can't imagine the world without him.

And, of course, his death has ratcheted up my concern for Footslogger's health, as I imagine JR's wife and children coping with his loss and then picture myself in their place. I'm trying not to dwell there, as both Slogger and I plan for him to be around for many, many years.

After the funeral on Thursday, there will be a get-together for friends and family at their home. I'm looking forward to seeing very old friends (most of whom I haven't seen for years) and to being with my mother, brother, and nephews for a few days.

Dogs and Mandolins

Now that our lovely fence is up around our jungle-like backyard (it's a small jungle, but a jungle nonetheless), we're thinking about getting a dog.

Thinking about it.

It would be a big change for us, as we've always -- at least since Slogger and I have been together, and that's 10 years -- had just the cats. We've commented many times on how much easier cats are than dogs. We can leave them alone for weeks at a time (with someone to check on them every other day, so don't flame me about that), we don't have to come home at lunch and walk them, etc.

Yesterday after we went to capitol city to buy a few things, we stopped by the dog pound to see if there was a dog there that would speak to us. We saw one that is a possibility, though she will not be adoptable until the end of the month. A black lab mix puppy, sweet and quiet.

Also, some friends just emailed us about a 3-year old black standard poodle who is looking for a home, so that's an option as well.

All of this while we're planning seriously on purchasing a small teardrop trailer for camping trips and trips to visit family. It could very well happen that we'll be taking a dog along with us . . .

Edited to add: I should mention, by the way, that in my former life with Bad Andy, we had 6 dogs and 5 cats. So I'm not a stranger to dogs . . .
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In other news, I bought Slogger a mandolin for his birthday, which was last Friday. THIS WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS THE BEST PRESENT I'VE EVER BOUGHT HIM! Seriously. He is crazy about it, plays it every day after work, has already bought all the accessories (he is a serious accessorizer) such as a music stand, a mandolin stand, a mandolin case, a tuner, a strap, and a capo. Pretty soon we'll take our tear drop trailer, our new dog, my keyboard, his mandolin and all his mandolin stuff, and hit the road as a traveling band. Got any ideas for a name?

Trail Days, Now Over

Another year of Trail Days has come and gone. As always, we had a blast, saw lots of old hiking buddies, ate too much, stayed up too late, and in general, partied like it was 1999. We left early Friday morning (and I do mean early! we got up at 3:30 AM) drove to Big Western City, through a snowstorm, I might add. Our flight to Newark left on time at 7:30, and though it was a bumpy ride, we made it there. Late. Having only 45 minutes to connect, I was pretty sure my luggage wouldn't make it to Charlotte, but it did. Rented a car, then drove the four hours from Charlotte to Damascus, which put us into our friends Trace and One-Third's home just in time to throw on a jacket and a hat and head out to the campground for the bonfire.

Ah, the campground, also affectionately known as "The Ghetto." It's a section of land outside of town that the city allows hikers to camp in during Trail Days. Imagine a parking lot, some port-a-potties, and then trails weaving in and out of bushes, trees, weeds, and mud. That's where the hikers who pour into Damascus by the hundreds get to camp, and pay $5 for the privilege. I completely understand the city charging hikers for the camping, because they have to pay to clean it up when everyone leaves and to police it while they are there. We are lucky to have had places to stay in Damascus every year that we've gone for Trail Days -- I don't want to camp in the ghetto. Not to mention that, according to rumor, it's a Superfund cleanup site.

Anyway, every year there's a huge bonfire in the Campground. This involves a massive fire, lots of folks gathered around it drinking beer, several drum circles, people playing guitar and singing, drunken shouting, occasional dog squabbles, etc. General hiker stuff.

We didn't see anyone we knew at the Bonfire -- it was mostly this year's hikers -- so we walked all around the Campground, past the Riff-Raff site, Billville, and the Quiet Zone, and then came back to the house for some well-deserved sleep.

The next morning we had a light breakfast and were getting ready to head out when Slogger looked out the window and saw Firefeet walking by (we found out later she was on her way down to the Baptist Church, where they have a trailer with FREE! SHOWERS! for HIKERS!). Now Firefeet has special significance for me, because she and Chickflick saved Slogger from hypothermia when they were all hiking together in 2003. Needless to say, I was excited to meet her.

After our chat with Firefeet, we headed out to the vendor area to give it a walk-through and see who we would see. First person we run into: Tangent, our buddy from the Nekton Dive cruises we've been on. And that was only the beginning, as we spent time chatting with Grampie, Texas Jack, AT Troll, AWOL, Carolina Cruiser, Moonshadow, Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Rain Queen, Karma, Mellow Yellow, Jen, and too many others to name. Needless to say, we did more talking, laughing, and hugging than we did looking at the vendors. It's always fun to be with the popular kid, and Slogger definitely fits that bill. The fact that he almost died this year made it even more special for folks to see him and talk to him.

And that's pretty much the way the weekend went. The highlights were the parade and the reunion dinner for Slogger's class of 03.

The Trail Days parade is both an opportunity for this year's hikers and previous year's hikers to get out and strut their stuff, and an opportunity for townspeople and hikers to blast each other with water balloons, water guns, and everything else wet they can get their hands on. The water fight wasn't quite so big this year, but there were lots of hikers in great getups.






That's 42 in the flowered outfit.













And Mala as the "Harmless Hiker."













All in all, it was a great time. Perhaps we stayed one day too long, as the festival ended on Sunday and we left town on Monday, but it was a chance to rest up, have a nice dinner with Seneca Lou, Tom for Short, and Trace. Monday morning we drove back to Charlotte and did the whole trip in reverse, which still took us 14 hours. Today we are recovering.

Trail Days

Tomorrow morning (early! We're getting up at 4 AM!) we'll be heading off to Virginia for the annual Trail Days celebration, a hiker festival extraordinaire. I've been to Trail Days many times over the years. Perhaps the most memorable was 2001, when I had been injured (see the side panel for the story) and was on crutches for the entire event. Well, not the entire event -- by the end of it I was walking without crutches for short distances, and shortly thereafter I got serious about physical therapy and got back on the trail.

Slogger and I bought our wedding rings at Trail Days, before we were married, for $8 each from a stall.

In 2003, the year Slogger hiked the AT, I met him in Damascus for Trail Days and hiked out with him. That year I was able to hike a month with him, before heading to Texas to visit my brother, his wife Lynne, and the newborn triplets (all boys!).

So, needless to say, we're looking forward to Trail Days. We'll be staying with our friends Trace and 1/3, who visited us in High Plains City a couple of years ago. It should be a blast!

I'll try to take some pics and post them when we get back.

Traveling Letters

Traveling Letter #1:

Dear Older Guy Eating a Sandwich in the Airport While Waiting for His Flight,

Really? At 10 Am you're eating a sandwich loaded with jalapenos and pickles? The smell alone is enough to turn my stomach, but dude. Please don't attempt to use the seat between us as a table, because a) your sandwich stinks and b) you never learned table manners and bits of food are flying around out of your mouth like they're being shot out of a cannon. That's right, I'm picking up my bags and moving away. 'Cause my mama taught me better.


Traveling Letter #2:

Dear Extremely Tall Young Man Sitting Beside Me on Our Flight,

I realize that your arms and legs are very long, and that you need somewhere to put your elbows while you peruse the newspaper. But dude, did God tell you that all armrests belong to you? 'Cause I'm pretty sure She told me that at least half of this one is mine!

Oh, yeah, and also? Slamming the door to the luggage compartment when your suitcase is sticking out of it into the aisle? Yeah, it'll break and a mechanic will have to come and fix it before the plan can leave, leaving you standing in the aisle and looking like a nincompoop. Oh, wait a minute -- sorry -- you already know that, don't ya?

All my best,

Dr. Bad Ass

When all Goes Awry

My trip to Toronto was a string of what I'll call "bloopers" connected by a few wonderful highlights:

Blooper #1: waiting to check in for my flight from Denver to Toronto on Sunday, I heard the man behind me say something about his passport, and a dreadful realization dawned on me: My passport was serenely tucked away in my nightstand drawer in Laramie, a mere 2 and a half hours drive away. I decided to soldier on and see how far I could get -- I managed to get into Canada on my driver's license and charm, and out of it on the same charm and a faxed copy of my passport from Footslogger. Needless to say, I worried about this CONSTANTLY while in Toronto. Sunday night I had to say "Everything will be ok; everything will be ok; everything will be ok" in order to get to sleep.

Highlight #1: Lunch with colleagues from graduate school at Bistro 990, where the omelette was PERFECT and the frites were all that.

Blooper #2: On Monday, I checked out of my hotel room and into my friend Marilyn's (smile). I neglected to listen when the clerk mumbled something about the room; when I took my bag there, I realized that it was a smoking room. Not good! When Marily arrived we had to do some arm-twisting to get a non-smoking room, but . . .

Highlight #2: . . . the new room was not only non-smoking, it had 2 beds instead of 1. Since I'm a loud sleeper (translation -- a bit of snoring, I've been told) this is a good thing.

Blooper #3 [connected to Highlight #1]: I didn't look at the map, and we decided to walk to lunch at Bistro 990. I thought it would take about 10 minutes, but it was actually almost 2 miles and took us over half an hour. We were late, but our friends graciously forgave us. On the plus side, Marilyn and I got an excellent workout.

Highlights #3 and 4: Dinner at The 360 Restaurant in the CN Tower, with former advisor and aforementioned friend Marilyn. Presentation with both colleagues and friends at the International Reading Association; they're so smart and cool, and they make me feel smart and cool by association.

Bottom Line:

Your passport. Don't leave home without it.

What are the chances?

So I'm in Toronto, walking down Front Street with a cup of coffee, a donut, and a newspaper. I'm enjoying the urban thing and feeling good about just hanging out in such a cool city. The weather's good, I'm from Wyoming, and I know no one.

And then I see them: a colleague and her husband. Standing on the corner. In Toronto.

What the hell?