| Home : Journal | $Date: 2002-12-22 23:39:08 $ |
Started raining this evening! Should be enough for the hills to start turning green again. Will make for a nice change when out hiking.
Drove to Montrose, Colorado to meet Dad. Started at 1:30 AM and arrived 13 hours later. At about 840 miles this is the furthest I've driven in a single day. The drive was much easier than I'd expected.
Mom died of a heart attack today. This was completely unexpected. She and Dad were on a trip in Colorado to buy their vacation/retirement home.
Went up Saddleback Peak from the Holy Jim trailhead this last Sunday. Rather a pleasant hike. What a difference a couple months makes! During the summer the heat and insects were ferocious. The air temperature was down 20-30 degrees from the summer, and the insect population is almost entirely gone. About a dozen volunteers from a mountain bike club were out doing trail maintenance, but otherwise very few people on the trail. From Saddleback you could watch a very dramatic thundercloud building over the mountains to the east. Didn't push at all hard and my time to the top was 3 hours 13 minutes (of which a few minutes were spent chatting with a trail worker). Seems my time to the top is always pretty much the same. This is my fourth hike to the top this year.
Hiked up Saddleback mountain today. Waited until 9:27am for two maybes to show and then headed up. Got to the top, collected the two SCARABs flags from their last hike, and placed a cell phone call at 12:37. I drank a liter before leaving home, a liter at the trail head, and took two liters on the hike. It wasn't enough. The day was clear, warm and sunny with almost no wind. Ran out of water on the way down, and after the hike drank about four liters before I felt normal. Made it down to the trail head about 3:50pm (I forgot to check the exact time). Took a wide-brimmed hat, used Deet liberally, and the bugs mostly left me alone. Forgot to bring sunblock, but with the sun near straight overhead and the hat, got only slightly burned.
I am bit tired and sore today. Took the dog for a walk to work off some of the soreness (much to his delight). Met a couple at the park with two dogs. Let Tiger loose to run around as for some reason the park was empty (odd for a Sunday) aside from other people with dogs.
On Saturday I made my first attempt to climb Saddleback mountain. Just getting to the trailhead was a bit of an adventure. Bouncing down the dirt road leading to the trailhead in my old Honda Accord took the better part of an hour. Lacking a map I spent two hours doing a warm-up hike up Horse Thief trail (to just past the junction with Trabuco Creek trail) before figuring I wasn't on the right path. Oh well... :). Backtracked to the Holy Jim trailhead and started up again. Made it up to the Main Divide road before running out of water. Went up the road a bit before better judgement (and a few thousand gnats) convinced me to head back down. Up and back took a bit under 4 hours (and a total of 6 hours hiking for the day).
Weight is down to about 197-203 so I'm still headed in the right direction.
First day I have felt reasonably normal since coming down with a cold on Thursday. So this morning I went with the Sierra Club "Sage" group on a conditioning hike through Whiting Ranch. As this was the first time, I wasn't sure what sort of trouble I was in for as they advertised this as a "fast" hike and "not for beginners". By the time the group was exiting Billy Goat Trail I was alone at the top of Dreaded Hill. Guess I'm not a beginner.
Ok, I'm slightly jazzed :). Weight is down to 205-210 (from about 235 last May) and I'm down to the last notch on my belt. Never had to buy a smaller belt before. As or more important my fitness level has improved. Got a ways to go, but headed in the right direction.
It's raining again. Rain is unusual in southern California. Rain when it comes is a treat, but this rain has come nearly every day for weeks. Now rain is like a hoped for guest that stays just a bit too long. The image outside my front door is a sort of suburban paradise. Shiny streets reflecting the gleam of tastefully placed house and yard lights that in turn illuminate trim yards surrounding immaculate homes.
This morning the rain was a bare mist. Instead of dropping my kids behind the school I chose be over-protective and drive them to the front. Naturally other parents made the same choice, and the line of cars leading to the front of the school was quite long. I was feeling just a shade out of place in my ten year old Honda followed by a new white SUV with Cadillac spelled out in gold letters, passing shiny new grey Mercedes sedans, and in turn following a massive Lincoln Navigator.
Has the neighborhood really changed? I like where I live, and the neighbors are all decent folk. Two houses across the street just sold for full asking price, and in little time. The neighbors once the slightly adventurous sort that colonize newly built areas, are slowly being replaced by people with fatter wallets. Does this make a difference, and if so what? The divorce and the marriage that preceded left me drained financially. I know time will solve this problem. For now I feel a bit out of step.
The kids will be back Sunday afternoon, so the house is quiet and waiting. The little weekly tasks are done, and the bigger jobs will have to wait for better weather.
The weeks without the kids are quite different. Thoughts run longer and deeper. Words build up until they can be put down on a page. When the kids are home, a thousand little interruptions keep any but shorter and more fragmented thoughts from forming.