February 8, 2014 – Saturday morning

-21 degrees/clear/calm

Pentoga Road

The past two days have been yawners. With the temperatures still in the deep freeze accompanied by a hefty wind to match, my main function has been to keep the wood stove full.

As I said, it's been a yawner.

I walked both days. Yesterday was probably the more miserable of the two. There was a 20-plus mph head wind and as I hit a straightaway about halfway between Alpha and home, I became purely miserable. Yesterday’s wind caused my hood to blow up like a parachute. I took the hood off and it was cold. I put it on and the wind inflated the thing and blew down the back on my neck. Damned if I did, damned if I didn’t. There was something positive; I hiked the distance in an hour and twenty minutes, my fastest time since the knee was worked on last July.

I kept busy inside on Friday. I…

Baked two loaves of bread

Washed three loads of laundry

Made a HUGE pot of chili

Swept all the floors in the house

Cleaned the hearth and the ashes out of the wood stove

Worked up the night’s supply of wood and carried it in

Spent half an hour playing fetch with Brutus

Did quite a bit of research (a professorial way of saying I surfed the internet in search of some facts and figures)

Took half an hour nap

I’ve begun looking at dates to hike the Picture Rocks Trail along Lake Superior this coming summer. It should only take me three days and two nights to complete the forty-five miles. Reservations have to be made as the Park Service limits the number of people on the trail at any one time.

I’ve done it twice; the first time with Uncle Terry and two years ago with Brother Pat. I want to do it solo this year and use the experience as a shakedown hike in hopes of kicking off, solo, on the 2,180 mile Appalachian Trail in March of 2015.

There are several goals for this coming summer’s trek. I want to make sure I have sufficient sight to ensure I can hike solo. I think I do, but it’ll be methodical… and that’s okay. Time is something I have plenty of. I used to ram all over the Arctic Circle and the entire state of Alaska by myself. Surely I can walk on a footpath up the east coast from Georgia to Maine.

My first goal is to go ultra lightweight this coming summer. When I’ve hiked with partners, I usually carry my stuff and part of theirs; and that’s okay. My personal needs are few on the trail and I’m hoping to keep my solo weight under fifteen pounds, possibly less. Two years ago when Brother Pat and I hiked, I carried twenty-eight pounds, a bit more when I hiked with Uncle Terry.

I also have to lose between thirty and forty pounds before stepping off on the Appalachian Trail a year from March. I’m not using the trail as an excuse to lose weight; that will happen on it’s own. I simply don’t want to carry an extra forty pounds, especially with one knee that is already weak. Look at it this way… forty lbs of body weight, plus ten pounds of equipment in the pack, is the same as carrying a fifty-pound cement block for 2,180 miles. It’s all I can do to cart one across the drive.

I asked my oldest son, Josh, a professor who has considerable hiking experience along with a couple of degrees in engineering, to help devise a way that I can teach from along the trail… no doubt involving some sort of mini tablet, a portable keyboard, a hiking solar panel (already have that) maybe a digital hot spot… possibly a satellite or two. And of course, I’ll have a device that will transmit my location 24/7 where anyone can go to a web page and see where I am at any particular moment. There'll be no hiding from Sargie.

Someone recently asked if I was hiking for a cause, a cure for Macular Degeneration, possibly to end world hunger, raise money for cancer research, etc.

I replied that I am. My cause is to fulfill a dream I’ve had for forty years. I want that framed piece of paper hanging on the wall that says I hiked the AT from beginning to end in one attempt. I have no idea if I’ll actually make it, the odds are heavily against me, but I have to try. I’m being selfish on this one. My cause is my dream.

So those are the things I think about on these long and cold wintery days. Well, that and tapping trees, gardening, summer fishing, building the shop in the barn, making trails through the woods so I won’t trip over rocks and logs, consider purchasing a small towable backhoe, and decide what kind of storage facility I want to build/haul in this coming summer.

Page Two

I recently saw a stand-alone aluminum carport with sides completely to the ground and have been doing some research. I could pour a floor, add ends and an overhead door, and call that a storage building. I want the most bang for my buck and unfortunately, there aren’t nearly enough bucks running around.  

I had an email this morning from the university saying I’m teaching Alaska Studies again this summer. That makes me very happy. I hope that means they want me for another year… or maybe many more years. I really enjoy my subject as it allows me to work with those who want to be educators and continue to live in Alaska, at least between my ears, even though my body happens to be on Pentoga Road.

Hey, good news. I got word that my friend, Scott, who was involved in a serious motorcycle accident several weeks ago, has come home from the hospital. He’s got a bunch of healing to do, but at least he’s home. Thanks for your prayers. I’ll be calling Scott in the near future, no doubt to offer a complimentary set of training wheels should he ever decide to resume his motorcycle riding.

Sargie’s home for the next two days. I have no idea what’s on the agenda, but I’m hoping it warms up enough that we can take a walk on the trails I made last week through the woods. The bird feeders need filling and no doubt we’ll go to town and grab a Coke, take a ride, stop at the insurance salvage place, eat leftover chili, and watch a movie or two along with the Olympics. It’s a stressful existence I lead here on Pentoga Road in the dead of winter. Oh, if only you had my life.

But then, as we all know, a man’s work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road… 

They say pets and their owners take on the same characteristics. Brutus occasionally is caught with his foot in his mouth.