I’ve been walking some lately, not a lot, but like 4x a week for the last 6 weeks. It was time to set free the adventuresome spirit within. Near my house, there are all sorts of trails into O’Neill park, which is really just a kind name for “THE WILDERNESS.” I decided I was going to trek across a fairly large valley, from Olympiad to Antonio. (see the map below)
So I entered the wilderness behind William Beebe park. You can see my goal Antonio parkway on the far right. The middle marker was as far as I made it. Doesn’t look like much? well check out the terrain map at google. Here’s the story.
Below is the path I normally take. It’s the size of a car, and I fit quite nicely on it most of the time. Rarely does a bush bother me with contact. I get scared for .5 seconds every time I see a stink bug, which is about every 15 feet. Even though they are small in size, they are filled with so much evil and satan, that it’s impossible for the holiness inside of me not to be repulsed. Not many understand this.
It was time to take new route. I could take this one:
Or this one:
Now, I’m going to help you out, because I’m sure you’re not a global trekker like I am. look at the angle of the shadows as a reference for the angle of descent. While the descent angle has some precise degree measurement, it was clearly in the HARROWING category. It was pure nuts. But that’s the kind of guy I am. I look for adventure, seize it appropriately, and normally spell “nuts” like this: nutz to prove I’m really crazy.
If you can look below, that far tree line was my goal. I figured it wouldn’t be that tough. I’d even have a nice stretch of my walk under the peaceful canopy of a forest. The shade would be nice. (not because I need the shade, cause I’m NUTZ) (all caps pretty much makes it “redrum” crazy and therefore untouchable). I didn’t need the shade, but I still had the ability to appreciate it, thinking, “weaker people would really need this shade if they were here.”
So I begin walking. the steep path turns a little bit, and a little bit more, and then it gets steeper. So steep that I fall on my rear. Hard. Well, I fell and sled for about 5 feet. Embarrassing and painful. When it happened the second time, it was just painful. What you see below is the new path. Yup, not a real path at all. However, I kept pushing forward, because I figured I could get from one edge of suburbia to the other without much more trouble.
I was now closer to the nice patch of forest (see below). When I got up to the edge, I reached despair. Those trees are all sticking up 30-50 feet, and there were these nice 30-50 feet WALLS forming a deep valley within the valley. I could no longer go straight, for my spelunking gear doesn’t fit so well anymore so I didn’t bring it. So, I went right. there was still nice forest with shade, and the walls weren’t so bad (5 feet). After a few slides I made my way to the bottom.
Now, when you’re huffing and puffing like only a 306 pounder can, lots of other things in life don’t matter, even thought they used to matter quite a bit. I had one thousand scrapes on my legs. Didn’t matter one bit. Every fly and gnat in the universe was circling my head and hoping to latch on to the little bleedy cuts about my body. This didn’t even register. My hands each had a half dozen little splinter-thorns in them (since I’d fallen), no big deal. In an abstract way (which is really the only way) I appreciated how being out of breath, somewhat lost, confused, and wondering if I was going to break my leg made me forget all the little things in life.
So I explored around some, found out that others had been here too. There were some “steps” nailed into one of the trees:
I kept moving forward. Until I looked down. (normally world trekkers look at the horizon. and eagles.) On the ground, I saw large patches of leaves, all held together and protected from the wind with MILLIONS and MILLIONS and MILLIONS of spider webs. That freaked me out plenty. But I figured, I’m walking, not rolling around and frolicing. As long as I could keep the mirthment under control I’d be fine.
I kept walking. there was no path. then there was a small split between trees, but it was not an option because the spiders in this part of the forest got tired of the ground and went up to the trees. A madman with chasing me with a flaming machette would not have motivated me to enter that pit of doom. I decided to turn around. Defeated. But alive.
I called the Mish, she would need to pick me up from a different spot. As a I drank some water, I decided to check my kindle….(I had my reading device with me because I knew it would take mish 20 minutes to pick me up.)… and it was destroyed in on of my three major falls down the hil
l.
That was a bummer. I was so tired, and scared of the ground spiders that I didn’t care th
at much.
So I headed back up. The sun was setting, and it was now pointing down the hill like a hot angry knife. I got to the step hill. There was no way I’d make it on my own two feet. I tumbled down it, that meant I would need to crawl back up it. I was thankful, for the very first and very last time in my life, that I had glasses, for it kept the weeds from poking my eyes. I crawled on all fours, like some lumbering retarded overweight bear. I only had to pause for breaks about 7 times. My hands got more little thorn things in them, but I was happy to be moving forward.
I made it to the park. Called the mish, and she came and picked me up. I had two tacos from Rubio’s.
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