Date: 2010-02-16
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Miles today: 0.0

I've been thinking a lot lately about becoming a trail bum when this hike is over. Some say I'm already half way there; the only need being to add the prefix 'trail' to the label. I live in a broken down old farmhouse on 40 hilly acres in NW Wisconsin. There's a nicely meandering trout stream going through my front yard and in the summer there is a car parked by the side of the road most days of the week as people come to catch a few trout. I usually go over to talk with them, mostly out of curiosity of who they are and if the fish are biting, but I must admit it gives me some pleasure to listen to them squirm as they try to explain how they actually have the right to fish on my property, keeping in mind that I never ask. I don't really care if they ask permission, it's just fun to observe their momentary discomfort, with me all the while knowing that if the roles were reversed I'd get chased down the road. One sunny spring morning a lady showed me where I had 3 Jack-in-the-Pulpit growing in the marsh, saying they were extremely rare in this area anymore. I replied she could have one and I would look after the remaining two. That afternoon I returned to the spot and all three were missing. I guess she needed them more than I, but you get my drift. One thing has become abundantly clear since buying this property: you really can't own anything. We all know this, but head knowledge is one thing and what is known with the heart is the ultimate truth. The Indians were right. We can use the land for awhile, become a slave to it in our delusion and be trapped in the age old pursuit of acquiring stuff. In the end, we all die and some schmuck moves in...for awhile, and the stream gently bubbles with mocking laughter, flowing on to the Namekagon River, the St. Croix, to the Mississippi and on into the Gulf, chuckling at our maya all the while.I spent 27 years in the service, saying so with not a great deal of look-at-me pride, but in wonder that, in spite of my best efforts of doing myself in when younger, I was fortunate enough to retire relatively young and do a few things along the way. One of the grandest things I've been able to do since retiring was hike the Appalachian Trail in 2005 and now I get to do it again. I have no plan of ending my days in a nursing home with tubes going in and out of all my orifices (although, I am fully aware that life is often what happens when we've made other plans) and it occurs more and more to me that my gift back to my creator would be to live the gift of life to the fullest extent possible...with a little weed when I can find some I do not understand if people profess to love life and love this country, why they continue to exist huddled together in villages, towns and cities. I suspect their comfortable with daily facing the known evil, but it no longer works for me and probably never did. It is my choice to walk as many of the trails of this country as I can in my time remaining, sleeping on the ground so many times that when I finally commence transitioning into earth, it will seem most natural. Until then, God made this planet for my own personal party and I do not intend to deny his gift. Good luck with your choice.