Written while in my tent on 4/26/2008 at 7:05pm -Bugs. Biting, swarming bugs. Years ago I went in the spring on a 3 day backpack trip. After the first night I hiked back out due to being owned by mosquitoes. That trip taught me the importance of bug repelant. Or so I had thought at the time. I just spent a miserable 30 minutes trying to eat too hot food as fast as possible due to all of the god damn mosquitoes with no bug repelant. After my dental assistant told me about her daughter's dream of hiking the Appalachian trail, I remembered back to some of my previous backpack trips. They form some of my most vivid memories. I still think about the first solo backpack trip I made in Colorado. It was high elevation and had brutal gains during the trail. Back to the matter at hand, I considered doing a trip and after being somewhat undecided until I actually got in the car, I did indeed do my first backpack trip in over 4 years. 4 years doesn't seem so long unless I think on it and then the time seems like a yesterday that never happened. The first real backpack trip I went on was 7 or 8 years ago with Jesse. We went to angel basin in the superstition wilderness. About 4 miles in to an amazing piece of beautiful tranquility that we both froze our asses off in the night. So it seemed a simple choice to go back to where I started, I seem to do this a lot lately. The 4 miles of downhill to the basin went well. No stopping or any major discomfort from the pack. My life felt invigorated as it had not for awhile. If only I had some bug spray. I must resign myself to the mostly safe confines of my tiny tent. Its not so bad with the sun down, but I really would have enjoyed sitting outside and enjoying the area. Tomorrow I plan to visit the Indian cliff dwellings that still look to be intact. This forest generates much noise after the sun goes down. Also a large family complete with barking dog shares the basin with me tonight. For my sabbatical road trip I think I might bring along some board games and perhaps try and introduce them to fellow campers. I've never felt motivated to build a community of any type before, but the idea of getting a nice group going in phoenix sounds appealing to me.
Mosquitoes stand guard on my tent door. I think they may know I need to pee. Its becoming cold and I'm tired of typing on this iPhone although I do have more to say I think. Oh well.
Written after returning on 4/27/2008 at 4:55pm -
Sleeping in the tent did not prove to be much of a problem, along I did wake up several times and stayed in an hour after waking due to the extremely strong wind that had started some time in the night and continued throughout the rest of my hike out. My new outlook on sleeping I believe helps a great deal. In the past I would dictate to myself that I had to sleep at a certain time or I wouldn’t be rested. Now at home I have more of an idea of I sleep when I am tired and if I wake up at 3am and want to get up, I do so. Seems silly, yet taking these steps improves the way I interact with sleeping. On my way out, I stopped by the Indian ruins, which still maintain a lovely condition. The past 7 or 8 years since I saw them last caused no noticeable deterioration. Footsteps littered the roof of one building, which I find very annoying that anyone would damage something so old by walking on it. I nearly lost my hat by putting it down on a rock and the wind carried it away while I occupied myself with sunscreen. After searching for a few minutes, I thought it lost, but the last place I looked revealed its location only a few feet from where I had set it. Relieved, I hiked the just over 4 miles out without much effort. The backpack experience surprised me in how well I handled the physical challenge of carrying the pack. When I returned to my car, the vehicle next to mine was the victim of some vandalism, as its front tire was slashed to shreds. Obviously someone intended on sending a clear message to the driver of that vehicle. I can only guess as to the cause, but most likely something to do with the drive up. I made good time back down the road, which was grated and in the best condition I’ve ever seen it in. Right before returning to pavement, something caused my rear tire to rupture, forcing me to stop. I figured the tire would be on the front, since that was the most worn. I quickly swapped out my spare tire only to find it was completely flat when I lowered the car back down. When attempted to refill it, then I noticed the valve stem had broken off. Note to self, the spare tire should be installed with the valve stem facing up, not down. This left me in a somewhat unfortunate situation, made almost comical by the fact the back of my car contained 4 good tires recently purchased before my trip. I never attempted removing a tire from a rim before today, but as the valve stem in the ruptured tire still worked, I decided to attempt swapping it with the broken one from the spare tire. With no tools other than my swiss army knife and tire jack, after about 45 minutes I successfully installed the new valve stem. I cut away some of it in order to fit it into the spare tire. Refilling the tire actually worked, and I limped home on it. The tire’s pressure nearly reached levels too low to drive on, but I did make it back. I’ll refill the tire and head into the tire repair shop next week to have all my old junker tires removed. What a trip.
