I have a few comments in response to Mark’s rousing post today:
- We can bring a pet mongoose.
- We can bring a comfy toilet seat. The mongoose can carry it.
- With carrying the toilet seat and defeating hordes of snakes, the mongoose will probably be rather large and muscular, so …
- the mongoose will be able to help on difficult trails.
- as for the bug menace … maybe we can Teflon spray ourselves?
Joking aside, everything he pointed out has merit. What we are planning is not simple walk in the park, even for the fittest of people. It is easy to be loaded with doubts before we even start, based on other’s stories and recognitions of our own limits at the moment. Once again … are we crazy?
When I was younger, I used to go on ten to twelve day canoeing trips in the middle of nowhere. We carried everything we needed with us, and would possibly not see civilization for as much as three of four days at a time. Portions of the trips often involved whitewater. And sometimes, we also had to portage between bodies of water. For those not familiar with a portage, it means carrying everything overland to the next water source. One of the more notable portages was about 2.5 miles long, which was reached after about 8 miles of canoeing. On one of these trips, that bit of canoeing was against the wind. The portage was necessary, because the only area suitable for a large group to camp was on the other side. Now to clarify, the 2.5 miles is the length of the trail (which incidentally was not flat). That means, bring some stuff over, walk back, bring some more stuff over, etc. For the beefier of us (yours included) this meant at least four trips, with the heaviest stuff. My canoeing partner also happened to be a young girl, and our difference in size was such that the bow of the boat where she was sitting was mostly out of the water during our paddle. So 8 mile paddle in a fully loaded canoe against the wind. Ten miles of hiking, half of that carrying a minimum of 70 pounds. And THEN we had to set up camp.
Did this push my limits? Hell yeah. Did I question if I could do it or not? Most definitely. Did I wonder WHY I was doing it? Who wouldn’t? But the simple fact is, I (we) did it. How? Frankly because NOT doing it was no longer an option. If we wanted food and shelter; wanted a bit of rest and comfort, the only option was to continue forward. And the beautiful thing was, this was pretty much just the beginning of the trip.
It is scary how much of our limits are really based on our mind. If we don’t believe we can do something, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Yet we will find that when we have no other choice; when the option is complete failure or just bullying on, that we have reserves that we just did not know were there. We will frankly amaze ourselves.
Not everyone has this strength no. Some would give up at the very thought of the tough road ahead. Or some my not even try the journey. But I know in my heart that this is neither Mark nor myself. We both have faced some dark periods in our lives; changes that affected our very ability to function. And we both bullied our way through. I would never have so heartily jumped aboard when Mark asked me to join him if I did not fully believe that together we can make this happen. Many people who have lived through what Mark has gone through would simply have settled for bitterness and a wheelchair. Not our Idiot. He fought the darkness; and not only became a shining beacon himself, but an inspiration for oh so many others. You are so strong on your own Mark, and you did not even have me on the side before. Maybe alone we could not do this, but together we will battle on through!
I still want to bring the mongoose though.
