Date: 2003-08-04
To: really i'm on my way back
Miles today: 0.0

After much deliberation and for that matter procrastination we will be in boulder this week. Big daddy & I had a pow-wow about just that this weekend. We ended up getting terribly drunk at some corn festival. You see here in wisconsin we will celebrate just about anything, providing we can drink. When we get through all the vegatables, we will be starting on fruit I'm sitting in a bar with christmas lights wrapped around a canoe and inflatable cows hanging from the ceiling, thinking as I sip my paint thinner(151 w/a splash of ice) I love this place. This night solved really nothing, except that people still frown upon one not wearing pants in the park. I also hear that i'm entirely too old to be summer-salting downtown, good to know!   Life is much like a fine mixed drink, it should always be shaken never stirred. With that said, could it be possible that i'll have more questions about life than when I started the AT? Though I wasn't out there looking for answers, I had hoped perhaps, maybe, stumble over a few, but no just roots & rocks. Yet, when I was done I had no questions to answer. Well, 4 years of living in wisconsin has taken it's toll. It dawned on me that perhaps I was that squirrel from the nursery rymes. You know the one that wasn't out collecting squirrel things for winter. Instead he was off in la..la..land, while all his squirrel freinds were collecting nuts and stuff. I can't remember did he starve or freeze? Why didn't he live in the shoe? Short of booking an hour with Dr. Phil, its back into the woods we go. Athough, I did read somewhere that hard work often pays off over time...laziness pays off now. Big daddy is planning 20 or so days to hike, but I may plod on by myself since life has kind of freed it self up. "When life throw's you a curve ball, pick it up and throw it threw a window". I don't know what that means, this is why I usually don't quote myself. The only thing I have that remotely has anything to do with my hike in this entry is that I have switched tents. I've opted to carry my brother's bibler, if only cause it's heavier than mine. That and big daddy had problems with a single wall tent earlier this spring, so i'm out to torment.      On a more serious note, one of my best friends is off to Iraq today. Not to get all political, but it amuzes me to no end. That after 9/11 everyone cried out, why didn't we do anything to stop this before it happened. Now the some of the same people are crying that we attacked this poor nation that hasn't attacked us. I forgot i'm not going to get political. Common sense is a curse i'll have to live with alone. My brother explained it to me like this "You see there is a finite amount of clue in the world and an ever growing population. Thus, leaving a lot without a clue" I wish shawn the best of luck and will pray for his safe return. Because without him and the others, I wouldn't be able to spend my summers enjoying life. If you think the angry people across the sea care whether your a peace loving hippie, they don't. peace..hike happy! I ran out of magnet to quote so this is from a calender.....Until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore, You will not know the terror of being lost forever at sea...---------------------------------------------------------------------   From "10 million steps" by MJ Eberhart   " If I had my life to live over, I'd try to make more mistakes, I would relax. I would limber up, I would be sillier than I have been on this trip. I would be less hygienic, take more chances; take more trips. I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. If I had it to do again, I would go places and do things and travel lighter. I would start barefooted earier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would play hooky more, I wouldn't make such good grades, except by accident. I would ride on more merri-go-rounds - I would pick more daises."[A Friar, Atonement Friars, Graymoor]