"As to when I shall visit civilization, it will not be soon I think. I have not tired of the wilderness; rather I enjoy its beauty and the vagrant life I lead, more keenly all the time. I prefer the saddle to the streetcar and the star-sprinkled sky to a roof, the obscure and difficult trail, leading into the unknown, to any paved highway, and the deep peace of the wild to the discontent bred by cities."

Labels: Nature, Outside, The_Woods, Writing

Here is kind of a postscript for the trip, three bulleted lists I made in my notebook while watching the autumn sunset light up the tamaracks on my last evening in the BWCAW.

WHAT WENT RIGHT:

• Beautiful, rain-free fall days
• Beautiful fall colors:
  -The birches still had about 15% of their leaves, the scrub oaks were hanging on, and the tamaracks look like God plucked each one, dipped it in gold and set it back down again.
• Exercised good judgment:
  - I knew when to swallow my pride and turn around.
  
• Re-learned something about myself I had forgotten:
  -I am quite strong... But without conditioning, strength won't take you far.
  
  

WHAT WENT WRONG:

• Pack overloaded:
  -I brought too much unnecessary crap.
• Body overloaded:
  -I need to lose at least 25# (More like 50) before I try this again.
• Body out of shape:
  -The primary means by which to lose the above-mentioned weight should be via exercise
  
• Equipment failures:
  -Boots fell apart
  -Stove was not running 100% efficiently (Didn't test it out beforehand)
• Wrong/inappropriate equipment:
  -Heavy base camping tent, no water pump
• Underestimated the trail:
  -The trail had the element of surprise - it had been waiting for me for 300,000 years*
  
  *(Not sure what I meant by that!)
  
  

WILDLIFE ENCOUNTERS:
(Updated on Sunday in the Ely coffee shop)

• On Echo Trail:
  -A family of Bald Eagles
• On the trail in:
  -I kicked up a rabbit
  -I passed within the vicinity of a skunk.
• In the campgrounds:
  -Panhandling whiskey jacks and red squirrels
  -2 Ducks of unknown species (Didn't look like mallards)
  -An otter swam up and briefly spied on me through the weeds
  -What appeared to be a beaver towing a log across the lake (What else would do something like that?)
• On the trail out:
  -I kicked up a grouse
  -I met a visibly shaken teenage boy who spent a sleepless night in a nearby campsite after a bear entered the campground, stomped around and snorted around the young man's hanging food pack.

Labels: Angleworm_2007, BWCAW, Camping, Fall, Lakes, Minnesota, Moleskine, Nature, Outside, The_Woods, Trip_Planning, Trip_Reports, Writing

A notebook jotting from last saturday, written while sitting on a fallen tree somewhere in the middle of the St. Croix state Forest:

Tolkien was not mad when he wrote about trees conversing with one another. Anyone who has spent time in the forest (and has cared to observe) knows that this is an authentic and completely natural occurence.

In the summer they give themselves raucous standing ovations with their emerald gloves, as they sway like drunkards in the warm, narcotic breeze.

In autumn they drop their leaves, each one like a neighborhood watch flyer, creating a communal burglar alarm for the use of all forest residents.

In winter they speak very little, mostly just groans as they rub against each other for warmth.

But in spring they will crack open their buds and don their gloves once more, with all the enthusiasm of a tent-revival crowd about to be born yet again.

I have no idea why, but chocolate always tastes better in the woods.

Labels: Nature, Outside, The_Woods, Writing

The Dharma Bum has started a wiki site for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The wiki site "...is meant to serve as a resource for anyone who wants to learn more about the area, about camping and canoeing there, etc."

Go check it out:

http://www.bwcawiki.org

Labels: BWCAW, Canoeing, Friends, Lakes, Nature, Outside, The_Woods, Writing

The other night I dreamed that I was sentenced to die by execution. I was sitting in the most bizarre prison cell, bizarre in the sense that there were no walls or doors, just four posts and a ceiling. It reminded me of pallet racking in a warehouse.

As my sentence was read to me (I missed the part about what crime I had committed), I learned that I was to be put to death by injection of a drug that would sit in my body dormant until I fell asleep, at which point it would activate and I would die peacefully.

I walked out of my cell and was greeted by a doctor who stuck a syringe in my neck and injected the drug. I was released from prison to enjoy my last day on planet earth.

I went to my job, where oddly enough I was still employed despite my stint in prison. I talked to my clients and attempted to schedule meetings, conference calls and launch dates. It was all pointless because I was going to be dead tomorrow. There was nothing I could do for them so I left work.

Next I found myself in a church meeting, where we were discussing budget items, missions funding and the building program. Again I found there to be little I could do, because in a few hours I was going to be dead.

I went home to my family, kissed and hugged both my wife and child. I felt a dread, as I realized that I should be doing something for my son, writing him a letter or making a video, so that he would have something to remember me by, something to know me by when he was older.

That evening I cooked my last meal - hamburgers on the grill. The air was moist and warm on my face - It was summer, and it had just rained. I closed my eyes and I could hear the sizzle of the meat, the droning of crickets, some kids playing ball down the block.

I found myself walking, down a sidewalk with tall brick buildings rising up on either side of me. To my left, I noticed a narrow opening, through which I could see a lush green courtyard. I entered the courtyard and took delight in the majestically perfect grass, the vivid flowers and the well-manicured trees. Suddenly the entire space was filled with a bright light as the sun broke through the clouds.

I continued to admire the beauty of the plants and the trees, now bathed in the golden light of the setting sun. I turned toward the sun and could see a brilliant rainbow, crossing over the sun like an inquisitive eyebrow.

I stood there in that lush green courtyard for the longest time, marveling at the work of God's hand. And I did not fear the coming night.

Labels: Dreams, Life, Writing

Disclaimer: This was written in one "take" over lunch.

The smell of dead leaves beneath my feet, the bite of the wind against my face as winter, still far off, begins to grow it's teeth. High spirits glide between the trees and my mind throbs in the silence of the forest, voices music and the sound of machinery still echoing in my skull. In their absence I am aware that my ears are ringing.

The wind thrashes the treetops high above, but on the forest floor it is like a conversation overheard in an adjacent room or a crowd as heard from outside a stadium. 100 feet between peace and torment. Somewhere nearby the same wind rips across the open waters of a lake and churns the bottom of a shallow bay, covering and uncovering the rocks in an endless cycle. Elsewhere it flattens the tall grass of a clearcut meadow and scatters the voles and rabbits into hiding. In the middle of a tamarak swamp deer take refuge, and the wind is hardly more than a suggestion that something is going on outside the walls of the compound.

All of these things I picture in my mind's eye as I stand on the path in the forest. There are more places than I can imagine, each alive and vibrant in this moment.
We break down where we are going and where we have been with units of measurement to indicate our movement. A mile down a path, a hundred feet up a tree, 12 feet deep in a lake, etc. But isn't each step of a journey from "Here" to "There" a new "Here?" With each footstep and branch the "Here" changes and is a little different than the previous or the next. Or would you entertain the thought that the entire planet is one giant "Here?" The Superior National Forest contains Three million acres of land, water, rock, and trees. That's more "Here's" than you could hope to visit in your lifetime. And it's just a speck on the map compared to the rest of the planet. Also consider this: Each "Here" has a history and a future. While it is important to study these, I wonder if we spend enough time studying the "Now."

As I listen to the wind I wonder what is happenening below the leaves in a thicket a half mile up the trail at this very moment. I wonder what is happening six inches under the muck in the eastern edge of a duck slough near what used to be my family's farm in western Minnesota. I wonder if anyone is freezing to death on the side of Mt. Everest right now. I wonder how many scorpions per square mile live in the Sahara desert.

I wonder.
I wonder.
I wonder.

I wonder about this world that God has given us, and how we march through it in such straight lines without ever taking the time to enjoy all three dimensions. I wonder about the time that each of us are given, and how we waste so much of our lives worrying over the future and dredging up our pasts. I wonder if any of us ever really learn to use history as a learning tool to prevent mistakes in the future, leaving us free to focus on the here and now.

Labels: Fall, Fishing, Nature, Outside, The_Woods, Writing

I have been doing a bit of off line writing which I may post later. It's been a heck of a month for any of you familiar with my mother's health issues. Hopefully I will have more later.

Labels: Mom, Web_Site, Writing

One thing about trying to write every single day is that it's sometimes difficult to find a "Jumping in" point. This differs from college days, because now so much of life is routine. Because I am sitting here with a finite number of lunch minutes remaining and I don't have the slightest idea what to write about, I will chronicle my daily routine.

5AM the alarm goes off. Re-set to 5:45, go back to sleep. 5:45, hit the snooze button. 5:56, the bedroom lights go on. Spend the next hour preparing lunches and grooming. Out the door by 7. Remember clothes, go back in the house and get dressed. Out the door by 7:12. Drop the wife off downtown and take the child to Mama & Papa Olojans. Drop him off there, outwardly happy that he is in good hands and quite content, secretly sad that when I go he doesn't share my anguish or engage in any fussing. (That's right, he's well-behaved and it bothers me) Scamper into work around 8:15 or so. Meetings, QA on my projects, assign new tasks to staff members.

Lunch. Coffee or Tea at a local shop and a sandwich from home. Sometimes when I am in the middle of a big project I will take lunch at my desk, hunkered down like I'm in my own private bunker, waiting out a shelling raid. I am trying to make a point of getting out of the office over my lunch hour these days. It's a good time to detach from work and engage in some writing. Like this journal, for example. I can't break free from ink and paper, thus this web log is a transcribed version of my treeware journal.

Afternoons are spent either in meetings or else reviewing staff assignments and/or creating more. When I say that my time is "Spent" in a meeting I mean that it is spent like a roll of quarters in an arcade: Time has passed and I've come away with nothing to show for it. Dilbert says that a meeting is when a group of people that you believe are intelligent and well-meaning get together to prove you wrong.

Come 5PM I desperately try to cram one more hour of work into thirty minutes. 5:30 or so I leave the office and cross town to pick up the wife. Together we go and reunite with our son. We go home and it is playtime, some dinner, a few books or a bath and it's off to bed for the child. An hour or two later and it's the same for us.

I could probably squeeze more time out of the day if I slept less or I did not enjoy the company of my family. But as it stands I need my sleep and I love my family. With that in mind I guess it shouldn't bother me if my entries are a little boring.

I must go now and consider the best possible method to become independently wealthy.

Labels: Life, Writing