Juneau? Alaska.

The Girl and I had three separate Thanksgiving dinners this year, and managed for the first time in several years to attend my family's traditional Game Gatherings which occur on Turkey Weekend.  By the time we reached our third tableful of turkey and associated sides, I was just about spent.  I mean--one of those meals alone had three different turkeys.  I felt like I should fast for a week after we got home just to feel normal again.  I mean, I didn't, but I felt like it would be perfectly reasonable, and for me, that's saying something significant.  I don't skip meals.  Sometimes I invent new ones.

The nice thing about Thanksgiving with her family is that it's always been the last of our Great Turkey Stuffings (wordplay! ZING!), and it's also the most low-key.  For the past few years, the four "kids" have made the meal, and when I revealed last year that I make a passable pie, it became my job for this year.  Now that I know it means I can do my work in the morning and then get out of the way for the rest of the day, I will never relinquish that role.  Why would I?  While they were going crazy about some silly game, I slipped out and went for a walk.  When I got back to the yard, I still didn't feel like being inside, but I noticed that the snow was packing really well.  I started rolling a big snowball, while my internal soundtrack making me laugh a little, without any real idea of what I was going to do with it.  Maybe a snowman.

Nope.  Instead of a snowman, this happened.

It's more spacious than my posture would suggest.  But not by much,

It didn't get finished until the next morning, and The Girl's brother came out to help finish it, but I still had a lot of fun using up every bit of snow in the yard (think I'm kidding?  Look at the picture.) to build an igloo.  I hadn't built one of those in decades.  When this one melts, the front yard will have a swamp full of leaves, hickory shells, mushrooms, apples, and all the other lawn litter that got collected with the snow.  I made it for myself, because I just really wanted to, but the excuse was The Girl's nephew.  They told me he had been watching me build it and was very interested, but when we tried to get him to go inside, his emotions ran closer to "terrified."  I don't think he appreciates how cool igloos are.  Maybe next year.

Ansels' Cave

Between Christmas and New Year's, I decided it would be fun to try a surprising change of pace, so I gave up robust health in favor of a head full of mucus and a throat full of dead hedgehog.  I like variety.  I also learned long ago in Oregon that when I feel that particular flavor of awful, cold air helps.  When I gave up on sleep around 4 AM last week, I went outside and shoveled the drive, prompting 66% of the house's remaining occupants to stagger sleepily to the door and chide me, but it was the best I felt all day.  Sledding was another attempt to get outside and breathe large amounts of chilled air.  Monday, after bidding adieu to The Girl's brother (Mr. Adventure), sister-in-law, and wee nephew, the rest of us went hiking at the Geauga Park District's West Woods, in search of Ansel's Cave and, in my case, more cold air.

We found the cave, and some ledges--that was easy enough, thanks to well-labeled trails.  Admittedly, the cave itself is not that impressive, and is currently closed to prevent the spread of White Nose Syndrome, an affliction of much-maligned flying mammals.  However, the ledges and affiliated waterfall are picturesque in nearly any weather, evoking images straight out of Tolkien.

I was also drawn, as I usually am, to snow that has stacked high, then warmed just enough to plasticize and contort into strange new shapes.

a plan revealed

My performance at the climbing gym over the holidays was an embarrassment.  My only defense is that I hadn't climbed since the trip in May.  Perhaps all the running I've done since then has led my body to the erroneous conclusion that it is ok to reabsorb that upper-body muscle tissue and refocus efforts on ridiculous calves.

Luckily, the climb itself wasn't the real point of the afternoon.  It was more about getting to see a couple friends I hadn't seen since the same trip in May, when they put me up for the night after returning to Cleveland, and then carted me to the airport the next morning.  After we collectively decided that a better use of the remainder of our evening would be the immediate consumption of wings and beer, we left the gym for the nearest Winking Lizard.

I've tried and failed to remember how we got on the topic, but somehow we came to my desire to through-hike the Appalachian Trail.  My REI dividend this year should be enough to get a nice one-man backpacking tent, and I had joked about how I might have to use it to reduce the cost of my next transcontinental migration.  Maybe that's how we got to the AT.  The Girl knows that I want to hike it, and knows my secret reason.  I got the sense from our friends' "oh, yeah!" response that they also knew my reason, but the topic never strayed that far.

I know I can handle the hiking; I regularly get up in the morning and hike ten or twelve miles before lunch.  Granted, I never have to cook over a pocket rocket stove, roll up a tent, or carry a forty to fifty pound pack on those treks, but it can be done.  I have the gear (besides a stove and water filter--I have Mom's stuff, but I may upgrade to something smaller, lighter, made for a single person, and designed with this decade's technology), including a small, compact sleeping bag and pad, and a cookset I got months ago and am still itching to use.  Mom got me a framepack for Christmas when I was in high school, and it has only been used for Boy Scout trips, moving, and one or two weekend backpacking trips since.  I'm a bit ashamed of that.  I asked for and received a cookbook called "Lipsmackin' Backpackin'" from The Girl for Christmas to expand my trailside culinary range.  To put it simply, the details of day-to-day backpacking do not concern me, though I plan to do extensive training and testing before making my way to Springer Mountain.

Nor did such details enter our conversation at the Wink.  People who have recommended I try out for American Ninja Warrior wouldn't question whether I can hoof it 15-20 miles a day through muddy, rainy, mosquito-swarmed mountains.  They wanted to know if there would be pictures.  That's when I started outlining the portion of the plan I'd never told anyone else, but which consumes much of my thinking about the trip.

I have a small, compact digital camera which I love.  It has shortcomings, and doesn't do a couple things as well as I would like, but it was a very thoughtful gift from my Dad after my last camera died on me during one of his visits West.  I have two memory cards, one of which I've never used because I've never filled the first on a single trip.  If I hike the AT, I'd take that camera, and both memory cards.  I would take a spare battery, and either conserve it very well until the next mail drop delivers another, or find some super-lightweight and possibly solar method of charging it.  I would also take a journal, and fill in as much as I could during my trip.  Each time I receive a mail drop with fresh supplies, I'd send out a smaller package with journal entries and a memory card full of photos.  This was the part I revealed at the Wink: that I'd like someone to be kind enough to post those entries and pictures where they could be shared.  I didn't tell anyone that night, but I had already started this blog for just such a task.  I also didn't tell them that, battery willing, I might shoot some video along the way as well.

I recently received a Spot satellite messenger from another friend; this was my answer to whether I'd take a cell phone with me.  It will allow me to send my location and an "I'm ok" message to my support team and other concerned parties.  It's also more durable and water-resistant than a cell.  A quick peek at my current location would let my support team know how soon they need to ship my next resupply package, and whether anything more urgent may be necessary (there is also a non-emergency "I need help" function).

Someday I'll post a more thorough explanation of why I started this blog, but for now rest with this: I want to share my adventures.  I am Fond of getting Lost.  And I was thrilled to discover that my friends were eager to transcribe a future AT trip, though they warned me that they may add some editorial comments of their own.  Of course, now that they know about my plan, I suppose I'm locked in to doing it.

drip

The girl flaked out on me, citing inclement weather.  One could hardly blame her, but I did, because it was funny to assume that high thirties and a steady, gray drizzle made great running conditions.  Had it been colder and snowing, as it had been two days earlier, she would have joined me, wearing several layers, two pairs of gloves, and a fleece vest.  I ran as I had in the snow: shorts with a bike-short-like liner, and a long-sleeve tech tee with the sleeves usually shoved to my elbows.  I had worn a light pair of gloves in the snow, but today I left them in my bag, working on the theory that the cold air and rain would be beneficial for my freshly-burned hand.  Florence and her indomitable Machine thrummed in my ears.

I can't help being self-conscious when I run with the girl.  I'm working on it, but the progress is slow.  She is a far better runner than I will ever be, and I always feel that I am holding her back.  To her credit, she insists that this is not true.  "This a good pace for me for a recovery run."  It is the sort of understated Germanic praise I have come to accept as a ringing endorsement of high regard.  Still, I over-think everything, end up focusing on how slow I think I'm going, and feel like I'm plodding heavily and clumsily along as she floats beside me, effortless.  This is not to say that I don't over-think everything when I run alone; over-thinking is my most operandi of modii.  However, alone I have no basis for comparison, and more importantly, no one I feel the need to impress.  Alone, it is only me, a trail, and an abusive, raw determination to run further and faster.  ("Pick it up, fatty!!  Finish the job!!")

Plus, with no basis for comparison, I can fool myself into thinking I'm running really well.  Truth be told, I am not a great runner... but I am a persistent runner, and that should count for something.

Today, I ran alone.  By mile two, my over-used cotton socks had grown noticeably damp, and water splashed from the tops of my shoes with each ungainly step.  My hair carried a thick coating of frigid droplets which warmed enough to feel like summer sweat by the time they had rolled past my eyes.  Trying to focus on an approaching car, I realized that either my eyes themselves had started to freeze, or the mist on my eyelashes had pulled the hairy flagella down into my field of view; I could easily see the truck a quarter mile ahead of me, but its edges could not be discerned.  This caused more fascination than alarm.

Mile three brought me into the park for a treacherously slippery boardwalk and a steep, muddy uphill slog that almost made me stop ("KEEP RUNNING, FATASS!!  DON'T QUIT NOW!  You can see the top!  It's RIGHT THERE!!") before a long, gradual downhill, the chance to startle a dog and his cell-obsessed person, and a couple long heel smears in what had been a grassy path, but was now a chilly bog.

Two more miles before I finished, and raining the whole time.  It was murky, gray, and ugly--typical Cleveland weather.  The air was cold, but five miles of steady loping kept me warm enough to be happy, even with icy water coating my eyes and clouding my vision.  The last run of the year was pretty great.