Run DMZ

 

I'm always amazed at how many social media influencers warn us to stay off social media most of the time. It's great advice, but I doubt these people follow it. Afterall, this is, like, their job, isn't it? Every once in a while, though, something pops up in the endless feed that does resonate with me. The following hit hard this morning as I complete the final week of backpack training and console myself in the passing of another dear old friend who was once the image of health and verve, until he wasn't.  I'm not sure if this actually comes from the mind of @jadebonacolta or she just didn't bother to use attribution, but here's a gem that reflects what all of us of a certain age know is true.  6 luxuries in life: time health a quiet mind slow mornings ability to travel a house full of love

To be able to sleep in and get in a long hike before life kicks into a higher gear is a true blessing. So many people were out and about last weekend, perhaps because trails were closed the three days prior due to tree treatments. Will be back here tomorrow (Thursday) with friends as the big backpacking trip approaches.

 I almost turned around early on the trail last Saturday, a bit creeped out by the lack of others despite ideal hiking conditions. I'm glad I didn't because I would have missed the field of yerba mansa in bloom about a mile from the Los Penasquitos "waterfall" on the South Trail. 

Thought it might be nice to resurrect Wordless Wednesday for the season. This is Eagle Rock, which we accessed yesterday via the Pacific Coast Trail in Warner Springs. The 6.5-mile hike had its challenges, from territorial cows and bulls to a snake in the middle of the trail. It heated up to high 70s, but that was a good thing for me and my heavy backpack.   

The beginning and ending tend to be what gets remembered most. We can recall the excitement and enthusiasm starting a new project, partnership, romance, home, family, or friendship. We also vividly remember how all of these end, whether naturally or suddenly. This robs us of the portion that really matters, where the mundane resides but without which progress comes to a halt. I'm talking about the middle, that part of a plan, relationship, or life where we actually devote the bulk of our time. It tends to muddle together because it doesn't leave quite the impression of the beginning and the end, what is known as the primacy effect .  That's why so much emphasis is placed on first impressions and final departures. But the middle is where we make our imprint, whether living up to a promise or proving people wrong. It's everything in the middle that determines how we are seen and remembered when it's lights out. Right now I'm in the middle of my backpack training ....

  I never considered how Bandelier National Monument got its name until a week after I'd left the abandoned cliff dwellings, the time-defying petroglyphs, the impressively preserved ruins, and one harrowing climb to an ancient housing complex that I wisely sat out. Despite these New Mexico lands serving as home to ancestral Pueblo people for millennia, once the cliffs and canyons joined the U.S. parks system, government officials chose to honor Adolf Bandelier, a Swiss immigrant and self-taught archeologist who studied this region and played a role in its establishment as a national monument to preserve the sites. That was in 1916 after the place had been vacated some 400 years prior by the indigenous populations that made a decent life out of honoring the elements surrounding them. A brochure you receive at the gate includes a message from the Affiliated Pueblo Committee: Spiritually, our ancestors still live here at Bandelier. You see reminders of their presence here--their homes...