Slept last night among windmills, which was fine until they started turning at about 3 am, waking me up. I had been dreaming about Dad, not doing anything special, just talking, but he called me “son”. And waking, I realized that that part of me was gone; that I am no one’s son anymore. We live just as much in other people’s memories and remembrances as we do in our physical bodies. When the bearers of those memories die, a part of us dies as well. We all know this; it is a part of our grief.
Enough morbid stuff. The day was not as shatteringly clear as yesterday, but as the trail left the aqueduct and rose into the Tehachapis, the desert floor of the Mojave presented itself along with the arrayed San Gabriels and a hint of the San Bernardinos, nearly a hundred miles distant.
Looking back over the Mojave to the ranges behind
One of the satisfactions of long-distance hiking is looking back over such immense distances and knowing that you have traversed them. And more than that, that you know these distant and mysterious looking lands – know the ridges and canyons, the soils and the trees, know them in a way that is possible only by foot travel. It’s a good feeling.
ManEagle takes a break at a cache in yet another burn zone, mile 548