Hobo Blues

Yeah, I'm kinda getting 'em. It has been months officially, but it feels like longer from all the time I'd been spending in June, July and August traveling. It's been a nice break, but I think I'm ready to plug in again.

So much has happened--my already late JMT trip got pushed another week for my grandfather (and oh, my grandmother is so scrappy, I just love her so much!). I spent a fantastic few days in Yosemite hiking up from the valley, taking my sweet time, climbing Half Dome, meeting cool people (none of them going my way though, not a single one!), and then once I got to the high country my enthusiasm just kinda evaporated. And it was starting to get really cold--much colder than I thought it would, about as cold as my ultralight gear would allow. I was nervous about the isolation, and the potential for weather with temps that low, and having to march 16+ miles/day whether I felt like it or not since my ortho class couldn't be missed...long story endless, I punted at the base of Donahue Pass, and headed back to Tuolemne. I met a couple of super cool guys just out for a relaxing, lazy trip, and hung out with them for a couple of days, and then they were kind enough to cram me into their 2-seater pickup and give me a lift back into the Valley, since the hiker buses had stopped running 2 days before. It was a nice trip all the same, and I can't wait to go back and start the Tuolemne to Portal section next year! I heard, after I got back to LA, that 4 guys who hiked up from Onion Valley got caught in a bit of a storm--they got some high winds, snow, ice, thunder/lightning etc. around Muir Pass. They were fine, but I was glad I quit when I did, since surviving that shit solo can get ugly pretty fast, especially that cold. Sometimes my risk aversion really does save my ass. And I will probably get around to putting up the journal at Summit Post or something. Photos are up here.

And really, I was feeling awfully lonesome and hankering for some nice mellow company, moreover I could NOT stomach the thought of blowing a week of vacation in LA, so I went up to Bellingham to visit my friend James. Now that I'm in Colorado I'm sad James is no longer in Boulder, but he's happier in Bellingham, which is a pretty lovely place I have to say. I spent a couple of days bumming around by myself in Seattle, found another Hostel From Hell™, and rode some ferry boats. Once with James we got to take long lunches messing about on the waterfront, play in the park, give ourselves sushi belly, try new beers, watch the veep debate with an unruly crowd of Bellinghamsters (they really call themselves that, I'm not making it up), and go hiking near the base of Mt. Baker and begin to plot our summer adventure traversing Ptarmigan Ridge. Oh, and I got to see the Fremont Troll on the way out of town. Photo record of that is here.

I swooped back into LA in time to make the ortho weekend, and here is where it gets sad again. I made arrangements with the wonderful woman who took care of my cats while I traveled to pick them up Sunday the 7th, or whatever the date was. Sunday morning she called me and said that Gibson was very sick and needed to go to the vet, so I said please take him. They called me in a couple of hours and told me as near as they could tell he had a stroke, and was pretty bad off. Somehow I made it through the rest of the class and went over there as soon as I could, knowing what I would probably have to do. I was fine (mostly) until I saw him--he was so skinny I almost didn't recognize him--he had evidently all but stopped eating, and was severely dehydrated too. He couldn't stand up, or hold up his head, or see too well, and he was scared out of his kitty mind. It was awful but I knew the kindest thing to do would be to let him go, he was so far gone. Dr. Jones was very kind, and let me stay with him, and even passed me a box of tissues when my blubbering was beyond control. I got the tiny little box of cremains in the mail yesterday. So now I can mix them with Pearl's and scatter them somewhere nice, I suppose.

By the time it was time to pick up Zooey I was somewhat composed. I did a championship cramming job of stuff into the car, and off we went. Zooey hated the box, and as I was pulling off the highway to get gas in Victorville I realized it was perhaps time to clip her leash to the door handle and let her find her own favorite place. Victorville was a little scary--this guy was roaming the parking lot back and forth across the road, and finally ended up dropping a dollar bill on the ground and convulsing himself with peals of hysterical laughter. We stopped again in Baker so I could get something to eat, and the nice lady at the drive-thru window gave me a small bowl and some water for Zooey. Naturally, she didn't want any of it, or the extra-stinky special wet food I brought to try and get her to eat. She ended up crawling behind my headrest and draping herself over it and falling asleep until we got to St. George, where I gave up and got a hotel room for a few hours. A few of her favorite hiding places are here

The next day was more of the same, but I was glad I stopped in St. George and got to see all of southern Utah by daylight. It was pretty incredible. The dry plains east of Grand Junction were nice too, but Summit County was the best (duh!). The aspens are brilliant gold and just shimmer against the dark evergreens. There was a little snow in the high country even, and the air was clear and crisp and not too cold. I landed at Craig and Jen's awesome little house in Platte Park around 5PM, happy to be there at last.

So far I've just been trying to get my bearings and get organized. It's hard to start your practice when you don't completely uproot yourself and move to a place you hardly know anyone, this is adding a few more wrinkles. But I don't care--I'm so SO happy to be here, I love it already. Even if I do have to stay in Denver for a year or two, since my strongest job prospects so far (super hot one tomorrow morning at an integrative pain clinic, stay tuned!) are here. I did meet a fantastically awesome physio who is the director of rehab at a large ortho facility up in Fort Collins this weekend, which was a nice surprise. I will go up there later this week or after I get back from LA in a couple of weeks to do some observation), and who knows? I'm also trying to figure out how I can make a connection at Boulder County Hospital, because it would be entirely possible to practice 2 days a week up there to start, as long as I have something busy down here. And, this morning I had coffee with a DNBAO from Fred's class 2 years ago who turned out to be so generous and kind and filled with heaps of useful information. I will observe at his office and possibly at the pain clinic where he started a month ago. It really is all about affinity.

I feel very lucky--I've hardly started asking around for help and already I've gotten so much. I try to remember that when I'm feeling scared, nervous, or lonely, and that if I found this much in 3 weeks hobo-crashing with my brother, surely in a few months once I have my own community life will be pretty good. And none of this I could have foreseen a month ago, let alone a year ago when I was struggling hard to answer all the questions about what was I going to do to make this work, to make it work for me, to get the life I wanted out of it. I still don't have all those answers, but I'll figure it out by the time I need them, I think.