Day 1041: Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Pods scared me to death when I was a kid.   I was terrified that if I went to sleep, a body snatching replica of me growing in a pod would take over my body.  Next to Psycho, it was the scariest movie I ever saw.

Now, I love to photograph seed pods, especially milk weed pods, because of the wispy fibers that protect the seeds.  I've been looking for them this fall, but there aren't many around.  The same thing is true about the monarchs that feed on them.  Reports indicate that there's been a 44% decline in the population in just a year.

Steve was gone to county meetings all day, so I worked steadily and finished the expenses and financing chapter.  Four chapters done in six days!  Hooray!  On the seventh day, I will try to finish the music for the Quest video.  That's right, Evan and I cleared enough space so I can complete the video.

Day 1040: Drowning our sorrows

Whiskey Hill wings offered a bit of solace and an escape from the constant barrage of news.  We didn't watch, but we did read updates on the NYT.  Perhaps the worst news was the percentage of citizens who actually voted.  In NY, it was about 31%, in Chautauqua Co. it was 24%.   So many important decisions and policies left to such a small percentage of the electorate.

I had Steve review the leadership chapter again and then I spent an hour deleting some more.  Then he read the routes chapter and I worked on that for several hours this afternoon.  I cover all the factors to consider when designing a route, procedures for using private and public lands, miscommunications that resulted in confrontations with landowners, descriptions of the state parks and national forests that are nearby and stories.

My favorite part of the chapter, though, is the tale of our trip to Hearts Content with a high school group sometime in the early 1990s.  We set off on a Saturday in late October.  All week the weather had been warm, but on Friday night, a cold front moved in, dropped the temperature to 40 and dumped tons of rain.  We hiked through the day in pouring rain along a boulder strewn trail.  It was rough going and by the time we reached our destination, it was nearly dark.  We set up tarps, but they didn't help much during dinner.  Lee had decided we would purify water from a pond to cook with, so some of the folks took care of that.

After a dinner of macaroni and cheese and hot chocolate, we tried to hang the food bags.  It was pitch black as Lee and Lou tried desperately to get the ropes over a branch.  I pointed the flashlight into the trees while they repeatedly threw the rope and we laughed so hard we fell over into the wet leaves.  At 7:30, there was nothing left to do but go to bed.  It was so cold, that we decided Colin should sleep in our tent between us.  Terrible decision!  He slept great, but we couldn't move.  Then, about 10:00, we were startled by gunfire.  Steve recognized it immediately.  AK 47.  "Probably somebody out jacklighting deer."  He went back to sleep and I lay awake with my heart pounding, listening to the tents rippling in the wind and waiting for more shots.  They never came.

The next morning, when the sun finally came out, all around us were brightly colored tents.  We didn't even know they were there the night before!

It was a great trip, but we never repeated it, unfortunately.  I wish we could cause the kids would love it.  I've never minded walking in nearly any conditions.  Today was cool, but sunny so we walked 4.2 miles.  It's only going to get worse in the next few days!

Celebrate wings!  

Day 1039: Midterm Election Day

Politics.  Love it, hate it, consumed by it.  I'm not as paralyzed this year as I have been in the past.  As a historian, I understand historical trends, shifting electorates, American short term memories, demographic changes and the Supreme Court rulings.  I'm enraged by the Citizens United ruling and the quantity of money poured into this race.  It still doesn't make it any easier to lose seats in the Senate.  It will be a miserable two years for the entire country because the gridlock will only increase.  The seats at stake for the Senate are in primarily red states where Pres. Obama lost in 2012.  It's not a wave when only 40 % of the population votes.  The picture will be different in 2016 and the demographic shifts will doom the Republicans again.

It completely baffles me why any woman would ever vote for a Republican.  Their disrespect for women's issues, refusal to vote for equal pay for women, the denial of global climate change, voter suppression, resistance to raising the minimum wage, refusal to support road and bridge reconstruction and the continued discrimination against the LGBT citizens is infuriating.  Instead, they're worrying about ebola, all four cases in the country.  We'll see how the it goes, but I'm not going to watch results and suffer all night.

I finished the leadership chapter today!  Hooray!  It was very difficult and I rethought a great deal of it.  Now, I have to decide which chapter to tackle next.

We walked 4.4 miles on this lovely sunny day.  Tonight there's a light rain and snow is forecast for Friday.  Not like Maine.  Steve's friend Chuck sent photos of his buried car and trees drooping with the weight of wet snow.  Eighteen inches of snow on trees that still have leaves could result in so much destruction, much like the October Surprise storm.  They were without power for a day, but that's been restored.

Day 1038: The wonders of late autumn

The flock has reassembled!  Thirteen turkeys rampaged through my garden, tearing up the hostas and pecking away at scattered birdseed.  I took photos, but the quality wasn't good.  There will be plenty of other chances cause I'm sure they'll be back.

I spent much of the day after our walk working on the leadership chapter.  Steve read it and we talked a lot about the qualities required of expedition leaders.  I revised that section significantly. Tomorrow I should be able to finish the revision of the balance on hike and cook group leaders.

4.6 miles today!

Day 1037: Boot-sucking mud?

I have a new idea for the title of my Quest book:  Quest: Boot Sucking Mud and other Tales from the Trail.  I thought of it this afternoon on our ride into Buffalo when I was thinking about the 25th anniversary t-shirt.  This morning at Penelope, I proposed: Quest Backpacking Adventures, but they thought it lacked pizzazz.  Most of them still like: Dig a Hole and Do What?   But I don't think it reflects the heart of the book.  It certainly is appropriate for a chapter, but not the whole book.  And I didn't even think of that title, Michele did!  We all recognize the need for a catchy and unforgettable title, but gosh that's hard.  Maybe they'll like this new idea.

As always, Penelope was inspirational and encouraging.  Linda's newest poem was a conglomerate of two that she had previously written.  She wrote it as a warning to humanity and it spurred quite a discussion about the state of the world.  The group is a mix of mostly liberals and a few moderates so we usually avoid political topics.  There's a great deal of worry today, though, about the rise of extremism as promoted through social media.  Young people, disaffected and alienated, are joining ISIS.  After watching 60 Minutes tonight, it is a legitimate fear.

They were delighted by my progress this week and approved of my plan to finish off the nearly done chapters first so I can seek feedback.  They were also very helpful on my questions.  I was deliberating how to organize the chapters and they agreed that the Outdoor Classroom would come first, followed by the history and then the overviews of the three hikes, followed by the "how to" chapters.  Sequencing those will be challenging.

Carol B. just returned from a Viking cruise of the Irawaddy River in Myanmar.  She is an experienced, fearless traveler who has lived in China and Indonesia.  She found the cruise pleasant but stifling.  They were transported from ship to bus to tourist site, back to bus and ship.  No time for exploration or conversations with locals.  She made friends with everyone on the ship including groups of Mexicans, Japanese and British.  She was put off by the Americans who mostly kept to themselves and pronounced the Mexicans "loud".    At the end, one of the Japanese tourists called her Miss Congeniality and then she was crowned Queen of the tour!

An afternoon trip to Wegman's was an adventure, too.  I tried a half dozen new salad combinations including an apple raisin slaw and a kale sweet potato mix.  Kale is the hottest new ingredient in every type of dish.  I picked a branch from my kale plants and snipped it into a big pot of vegetable soup.  I like that it keeps its shape and texture even after cooking for hours.   It adds nutrition without changing the flavor of the soup.

Since the weather was much improved today, we put down 3.3 miles.  Late afternoon sun turned the golden leaves to bronze and the reds became wine colored.  Steve's friend Chuck who lives in Maine reported that they got 18 inches of snow and the power had been out all day.  We were lucky that we only got a dusting.  Tonight, we may have a killing frost.

Day 1036: First snow!

The first snow of the season fell today in soft, squishy flakes.  None accumulated fortunately, but in South Carolina, and across the south, they had a few inches.  For the first time in two months, I didn't go walking.  It felt strange, but it was so wet, cold and nasty out.
Instead, I spent the whole day on the book.  Steve was out at the MS musical and I could work uninterrupted.

I decided to work on the weather chapter first since it was so close to completion.  In 3.5 hours, I finished all the final revisions.  I added a few paragraphs on this year's cancellation, substituted nouns for we, and cut lots of extraneous words.  I'll present the chapter tomorrow at Penelope.

In addition, I reviewed chapters 15 to 18 on recruitment, expedition organization, costs, and trials and triumphs.  The first three will require only a little work to complete, but I decided to split the last one into two chapters.  Half would be on dealing with the medical and individual needs of students and how they triumph over their limitations and challenges. The second part will be more geared to other trials along the trail related to citizenship and our code of conduct.  This will take significant work even though most of it is already written.  I think it's a better way to organize the information and it will keep each chapter at around ten pages.

So, the plan is to polish the fifteen or so easy (closer to completion) chapters so I can give them out to readers.  Then I will focus on the more difficult or new chapters: games & activities, citizenship, ladies' issues, and a conclusion stressing the impact of Quest.  The preface needs punching up too, and then there's the indexing.  But, I can feel that it's within my grasp.

Look closely for the tiny snow flakes

Day 1035: Grape Vinaigrette

We met with the entire eighth grade in Fredonia today during Doug's classes.  Jake and Alex came for all five periods and shared their experiences.  Emma, Charlotte, Jordyn, and Anna also arrived to help for a few periods each.  Their stories really make an impression on the eighth graders because they are so close in age. Plus, their enthusiasm and excitement are contagious.

At midday, there was a break in the classes, so we tried out a new restaurant on Main St. in Fredonia that just opened two days ago.  We ordered a tomato-barley-chicken soup that was thick with vegetables and seasoned subtly with herbs.  I suspect it was not homemade, but it was tasty and hot.  I had a harvest salad with fresh organic greens, apple, craisins, candied walnuts and a bit of cheese topped by a grape vinaigrette dressing.  Delicious!  Steve selected the turkey and bacon sandwich which was made on fresh bread and served with kettle chips.  Service was excellent and very quick.  We'll definitely go back.

Harvest salad

During the very last class, Bryan and Amanda's class also was in the classroom.   Both of them spoke about the challenges and benefits and what they love about Quest.  They were very encouraging to the kids.  At the very end, one boy asked me what my favorite part of Quest is.  No one has ever asked me that and it caused me to pause a moment.  I told him that I love watching the kids play and hearing their laughter during the games and I love walking in the creek gorge with the sheer walls of rock reaching high above us and towering trees swaying beyond that.  Afterward, I wished I had said also how much I enjoy seeing their faces light up with new discoveries, like seeing a fawn curled up in the forest, or catching crayfish, or watching the night sky.

Earlier in the day, Steve asked a class how many had siblings who had participated and several put their hands up.  He asked one boy what his brother thought and we were shocked to hear him say that his brother had been kicked out.  Of course, we have never done that in all our years.  Afterward, we checked with the assistant principal and it turns out the brother was part of a ring of thieves who had been discovered while we were out hiking.  That year, Steve transported four boys out to the school for interviews and then suspension.  We didn't kick him out, he was pulled out by the administrators.  Natually, this boy didn't share that part of the story.

I spent hours on the book today.  I reviewed another four chapters including the ones on weather, food, equipment, and trials and triumphs.  Weather is in great shape.  I just need to add a section on us canceling one day of the four day this year.  Equipment needs a little punching up, but it's mostly done.  Food is also close to being done also.

I might have to consider splitting up trials and triumphs into two chapters because it is so long.  There is so much related to medical emergencies that I don't think it fits with the other content.  So, I need some input on how to re-organize that one.

We only had time for 1.6 miles today, but that helped boost our total for the month to 93.5 miles!  Hooray!