Dear Trail Friends,
An odd day. Instead of taking it slow, I pushed myself to walk faster and further, because for some reason the notion of a shower and laundry and hot meal between resupply stops totally captured my imagination.
I could say it was the mother complex still at the wheel. Instead of following around the beautiful young boys who seemed to need a woman's attention, I was drawn to the fantasy of having someone feed and attend to me. It's all that archetype, isn't it, of the mother, that dream of an Eden before the fall. (Whether one imagines having the power to bestow it on others, or bring the recipient, it's all about paradise. )
I did not particularly like this section of the trail. I suppose I was enjoying it at first -- reflecting on the thick trees and sense of being in deep woods, glimpses of blue sky here and there. Looking as far as the eye could see, trees and more trees. Very different from the expanse of mountain.
I was thinking it's no big deal to walk twenty miles a day here in Oregon on this soft smooth dirt trail. How gentle and kind and soft it is on the feet. Not like those rough rocky trails I've hiked so much in California.
No sooner did I think that than I was hiking through great fields of hardened volcanic lava. And that went on and on and on, mile after mile, with interludes of trees and shades and then stretches exposed to the sun and big black hardened lava rocks as far as the eye could see.
I was bored with the trail. My feet hurt. (They kept reminding me to take breaks and rest in my inverted posture -- it truly helps my feet and my whole body). And the summer of insects had started -- four welts from mosquito bites on my right ankle despite careful use of my (herbal) repellant.
Realizing I am just going to have to put up with bug bites, while doing my best to minimize them. Big ants, little ants crawling all over my body and gear and into my food bags. Yellow jackets --a herd of them -- actually probably 3 or 4 but as they buzz and zoom they sure seem like a lot more, really in my face while I am eating and clearly more influenced by the attractant (food) than the repellant. Deciding I will do more of my reorganizing food ( moving the days bars, cheese, and beef jerky out of the smell-proof bags in my backpack into the small smell-proof bag in my waistpack) inside my tent. I've tried at least in principle to avoid food smells in the tent, so as not to attract bears. But the truth is I am far more concerned now about bugs than bears.
Photo 1: at first the lava rocks intrigued me. I wondered when the eruption was and how the liquid lava flow had transformed itself into these separate hard-edged rocks. I tried to imagine what it would be like to witness the lava flow ( though I realize anyone who witnessed it would probably be killed. ) [by the way, a visit to Wikipedia suggests that this mountain, Brown Mountain, last erupted 2000 years ago.]
Photo 2. I wondered if it would be fun to imagine the lava moving in waves, and Bonnie riding a wave of lava. So this was a tentative candidate for Bonnie's Wave.
Photo 3. More lava. Miles and miles of lava. I thought about hell. Eternal fire. A place where nothing changes. That's how I started to feel about these endless fields of lava.
Photo 4 The trail through the lava field has been meticulously maintained. Who brought in and spread this red (also lava rock, I think, but clearly not from right here -- it makes the trail clearly visible. I was struck that the trail itself is sinuous like a snake or a wave as it moves through the lava. Maybe this could be Bonnie's wave today?
To be continued in Part 2
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