I'm going to the campground

Hello everybody. Have not been able to get to computers for a few days - have been working through days off again. But am taking today to go to one of the campgrounds for the day - taking my guitar and looking forward to sitting around a campfire, playing some music and making some more new friends. I met the campground hosts when they came to the park for a tour a couple of weeks ago and they invited me to join them on my next day off. Hope all is well. Linda should be in Arizona with the kids having a good time.

I'll try to get another book exerp typed before I have to catch my bus to the campground. These new computers we got are supposed to be faster - will see if it helps my typing go a little faster, too!!!


. . . . July 9th, 2007 - Just another walk in the park - got a day off - one out of the last 14 days but that is good for me. The more I work the faster the days go by. It is not that I want for the day to all be gone so I can come home, it's just that it helps me to be busy and keeps me from thinking of home, which I miss very much. But I can handle it. I think that I am about half way done with my great journey. I figure I should ask one of my fellow drivers friends if he might have a small day pack that I might borrow and of course he does. He says, "Plannig to do a little backpacking in the park on your day off?" Well, you know me, "Of course," I say, I'm thinking I might cut some new trails for the park district. You know what ever they need - 210 - 220 - whatever it takes. Just something 7 or 8 miles long and maybe up to about 12 or 14 thousand feet. I really don't want to go much higher than that without my personal climbing gear." So my soon-to0be X friend says, "Well, if you want, you can use my climbing gear" Great!!! With it being my day off and all I have slept in and am quite rested and my mind is fresh and sharp and with a quick responce I say, "It probably won't fit me" "Not to worry" he says " all you need is rope and a hammer" With it still being before noon and my mind razer sharp I say "Thanks anyway, but I am allergic to himp" thinking that this will surely shut him up and let me get out into the park so that I can get on with my own style of trail clearing. "Not to worry, the rope I have is nylon! - like he is Sir Edman Hillery just back from Everest. So I say, "well, in that case, I would just love to use your rope and hammer" thinking that he would start to go get his climbing gear then I could follow him and when we get to the steps I could give it that old sprained ankle stumble and say something like "hold on, this ankle might start to swell. I better get some ice on it and drink some ice tea and see how it does in an hour or two, knowing full well that I would not have time to cut 7 or 8 miles of trail then and still get back in time for supper. But I think this new X friend has mind-reading abilities. He says it's not really a hammer, it's a climbing axe. Ok, ok, just get your rope and axe and I'll use them, ok. Then, with a rather puzzled look on his face he asks do you think you'll need my peetons. Of course, I will say. I've started to turn red and spit when I talk now from anger. The nreve of this X friend. All I want to do is go for a walk in the park and he turns it into a full-blown climbing expedition. Finally, I let go of his throat and he runs to his room and is back in just two minutes with all this neatly bundled rope and pack with this chrome platted ice axe and a hole stringer of peetons or krovtons. I don't know. But he throws them at my feet and runs back toward his room mumbling something like "keep them for as long as you need them - or as long as you something. I could not hear him all that well but I think it was something like that ice hole and it freezing over. I figure it is mountain climbing talk so I just say, "Sure, no problem. It's about 1:30 and I finally get on a bus and head out into the park. It has taken a little longer to get all of my essentials packed. I had to fill two water bottles with ice and my hand got really cold pushing all those little squares of ice into the bottles so that I would have some nice cold water to drink on my hike. I wanted to be comfortable when I stopped my trail blazing. Finally I am off the bus and out in the back country - that is Alaskin for in the woods alone at last. The first thing to do is find a place to hide all the climbing gear where no one will find it. Then I remember that I am in a six million acre wilderness not in an Illinois 5 acre wood lot. In the Alaska wilds you don't need to hide climbing gear you just need to know where to find it after you lay it down. So I figure a new tree will do for me, being that I am part Alaskan now it should be no trouble finding later. Ao with all that un necessary climbing gear stashed it is off to find the best looking mountain within close waling distance that probably has never before been climbed by a half Alaskan and half Humboldt flatlander before. So I look them all over an pick out the tallest and steepest one probably in the whole Alaskan range, except for McKinly. I get very comfortable in a grove of beautifully smelling open space and I carefully plan my route to the top. I figure it should take an experienced climber about two hours to make the sumitt but someone who has read as extensive as I have should summit and be back down in about 40 minutes. So I close my eyes and explode into the brush and start my assent of the mountain, knowing that when I make the summit that I will have to come right back down so as not to miss the 3:00 bus I will need to take to go back to the front country - that is some more Alaskan - it means back to my room. I must say I don't think I have every shown more skill and grace and just shear agility in my climbing abilities in my life. It seemed like in just no time I was sittong atop of one of Alaska's more massive prepapuss - this means high mountain and boy what a view it was. Breathtaking to say the least. So, for the next 2 hours I tried to catch my breath that this mountain had taken and enjoy the view. Finally, after my 2 hour nap in mountain's valley, I happen to remember I have some ice cold water that I fixed for just this occasion. It is right there in my pack - which is right there by that new tree where all my X friends climbing gear is stashed - who needs water, I laugh - and start my descent - that means to come back down in Alaskan. My descent is amazing - it takes less than six minutes to get all most all the way back down. I think the driving rain and hail sotrm that has blown in over the back side of the mountain has helped with my rather stylish descent. Almost all of it is done in the full-tuck position. I think I started with that old standard stop - drop - and roll but I soon realized this mountain was far to tricky for standard back-home flatlander descending - I was going to need to use all my Mary Lou Rettin moves to keep from tearing all my cloths off - which would make it hard to get bvack on the bus. But when I was very close to the bottom I remembers my Timex training and went in to a full heal first butt slide with one finger pointing to my wrist just in case come other hiker might be walking the road as I came rocketing out of the road-side brush. He would know that I was merely testing my watch. But alas, no other hiker was there to wittness my 4-point landing on the road, which was a good thing - they would have probabbly wanted my autograph and I only had two hours to find my water bottle and all that useless climbing gear so that I could catch that last bus out of the park at 11:00 p.m. that night. I knew I should have brought camping equipment - not climbing - but so much for hindsight. That night I camped out in Denali is another story . . . .