Journal Update 8 May 2000

The long train ride social event is almost over.  Its time to leave the
textbooks behind and live or die with the knowledge I have in my head,
leaky as it is.  I've reconfigured my "luggage" so that pack is one unit
and stuff-to-send-home is another.  Hopefully I can reach Campo tonight. 

First real error (besides allowing myself to be sucked into the PCT
gravitational field) -- leaving behind or losing my mail drop
list/schedule.  But I should be able to get a copy from Dad before it
will matter (see, they really are full-time partners).

The excitement, physical confinement, and beginnings of caffeine
withdrawal have made it hard to sleep.  Tonight begins the process of
adjusting to sleeping on the ground.

I miss Kerkira already because of seeing kids on the train; everyone else
will follow in stages.

[later]
I'm at the San Diego Railroad Museum where Thomas Lee Braginton has
graciously offered me a place to stay for the night.  I finally arrived
at the El Cajon Transfer station by taking the Orange Trolley line from
the San Diego Train Station.  By the time the bus for Campo had left six
other PCT hikers had showed up.  When we arrived at Campo, two continued
on the bus to Lake Morena to try to avoid any border troubles.  Three
took off to the border monument, and two of us went to the railroad
museum.  When it seemed as though the place was deserted, I went a little
further searching, and the other hiker disappeared.  So I got permission
for five, but so far only I am here. At sunset, I can't go scouring the
countryside, and such is the nature of "togetherness" on the PCT.  Things
have to sort themselves out, and in the company of six thin
twenty-somethings, a forty-something with a few extra chocolate treats
under his belt doesn't have much real "weight". It's a relief for me
because I would like to fall in with someone with my own pace and style,
and this process is how that occurs.
Tonight -- a can of Vienna Sausages in honor of a lunch Dad and I had on
a rainy-day hike around Green Falls  Reservoir when I was a kid.  We
roasted them over a fire, though, while today I just poked them with my
knife right out of the can.

While we wound our way up the hils in the Rural bus and I watched the
greenish bouldery hills wind by, I felt a strong sense that I was
scratching a deep itch long suffered.  I feel at home here, poised on the
brink of a long, good ride.

--Dave


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