We made it a point to wake up early this morning so we would be alert for our phone interview with AARP Magazine. It’s probably best not to have slurred speech with long pauses during an interview…normally. This call was not in connection to my previous attempt to get them to feature the geriatric, homeless couple living on the trail. This was for a piece for the plus 50 crowd who quit/retired to pursue their dreams. The focus of the article is the steps those dreamers took to be financially secure while enjoying the dream life. I knew we were not the target the article is looking for when they mentioned “steps you took for financial stability.” “Uhh, we still buy lottery tickets when we come to town. Is that what you’re looking for?” Crickets.
The truth of the matter is that we do have some money for retirement to supplement whatever social security the f$&ing Republicans don’t manage to take away from us. McConnel is now blaming the huge deficits on social security rather than the $10 Trillion tax cut we just gave to the richest 1%. We also have a house fund set aside which I would like to dip into. I’m working on talking Bunny into a tiny house that is mobile rather than buying property and getting tied down to just one place to live for the rest of our lives. It comes down to how we look at houses.
Bunny has dreams that our house will be a safe location where her kids and grandkids will come. Her kids do not like the areas we want to live in. Both of them have mentioned Texas as possible locations to live. No way in hell I will own a home in the gun/bible capital of Merica. Plus, I see a home quite differently. I see a home as a place to watch Netflix until I die. “Bring out your dead. I’m not ready to die yet. I’m feeling better now. I’d like to go for a walk.”
Following the disappointment of realizing they weren’t really interested in us, I was ready to drown my sorrow in food. Maybe we could try the gas station…I saw they had lottery machines. We could eat and work toward financial stability in one stop shopping. Plus, it’s only about 100 steps away—“100 steps to financial stability” will be the name of the book that we hire the ghost writer to work on once we win. We’ll backfill details like: we planned for years before quitting our jobs; I was never really serious about selling Bunny’s kids to Arab human traffickers; pay yourself first before buying food; and other gems we have time to develop. AARP will come crawling to the old, rich, formerly homeless hikers.
Charcoal Butt and Struggles had left before 8. We tried to text them to go to breakfast but got no response. Maybe they were just ignoring us. Perhaps they’ve already tired of me and want some alone time. We had told them we wouldn’t leave before 11 since we had made an investment in a town dwelling location and we like to maximize the return on our investments by staying until the maid comes knocking on the door. We know how high finance works!
When we had woken up, it was raining outside. Further reason to take our time getting ready. By the time 11 rolled around, there wasn’t rain, but the clouds were still very low in the sky. We couldn’t see any of the mountains around us. Bunny needed to talk to both of her kids since we might not have cell service for 5-6 days. I miss the good old days when you could go hiking and not hear any news or have anyone pester you for money. It doesn’t seem all that long ago when you could actually NOT be in constant contact with everyone. But then I would have had to write in a journal just for myself and not be able to share these words of wisdom with tens of people who don’t read it and only look at the pictures.
It was 0.3 miles back to the trail. Less than 50 steps after the gas station, where we did not stop to buy a lottery ticket, it started to rain. I think it might have been god telling us to turn around and buy that damn ticket. We ignored all the signs and just stopped under the interstate overpass to put on our pack covers. That was exactly what was needed to get the sun to come out and raise the humidity to near Missouri levels so we would feel right at home.
The next 7 miles of trail was all uphill. This was expected. It wasn’t really that bad except for all the sweat and lack of air movement. Since it is a Friday, we did meet several day hikers, but none of them suspected that they were passing a couple of failed thru-hikers. We, too, were clean and did not smell of day old skunk spray. I was clean shaven. Bunny had hairless legs (normally, this was what Gillette did to its test bunnies—shave their legs) and was proud of it. But most telling of all, we have no visible ultra-light backpacks. Every person on the trail thought no one would be stupid enough to carry the loads we have on a thru-hike. We blow everyone’s assumptions away. We are thru-hikers. We are dumb enough to carry all this gear for thousands of miles. We are not retired. We are not rich. We are happy which makes us rich (this is what poor people are required to say).
We only stopped a couple of times to drink some water. The second time, I needed some fuel because my stomach was grumbling. An English hiker, Kaput, stopped and chatted for a few minutes. She and her husband are thru-hiking and flipping like us. Not quite like us. We’ve flipped 5 times so far and are only 1000 miles into the trail. They flipped twice, once across the Sierra, and once to Hawaii. It took them 2 weeks to realize they weren’t on the PCT and another week before they decided to get back on it.
We made it to Ridge Lake around 4:30. We spent the next hour circumnavigating the lake and scouring the surrounding area in search of Charcoal Butt and Struggles. We encountered a few people that knew of them and said they had arrived around 4 but might have continued on. We eventually gave up looking and set the tent up on the far side of the lake where we could see the trail and all who passed. Except, we were too cold and got in the tent and ignored everyone.
There were two choices for camping tonight: 1) camp out of the wind but get swarmed by mosquitoes forcing you to retreat to the tent, or 2) camp in the wind where the mosquitoes can’t bother you but the cold wind forces you to retreat to the tent. It should be obvious to everyone that regularly reads the blog, that I chose #2 (#2 is the single topic I talk about the most over time). I did prepare my lovely bride supper, as is my custom on the trail. I even stayed outside to do so, but we both retreated inside to eat. We’re not going to see a bear tonight.
EFG