Cactus to Clouds (Almost)

A few weeks ago -- for no particularly good reason -- my nephew and I climbed a mountain. Not in the sense that we drove to a parking lot within a few thousand feet of a summit and then finished the business with a leisurely trot or even in the sense that we overcame a profound spiritual or psychosocial problem by digging deep down inside ourselves to find the strength our parents and elementary school teachers always knew we had, but in the "we started at the bottom of a mountain and hiked to friggin' top of it" sense. And it turns out that involves quite a bit of hiking. Truthfully we did not "hike" "all the way" to the "summit" -- my chicken legs wouldn't have it -- but we did make it a little over 4/5 the way and with a change in elevation of a little over 8000 feet I'm sticking by it. Regardless, I now have a feeling of accomplishment where the feeling in my feet used to be. Plus Beeders refused to drag my body up the rest of the way so in a way it's really his fault.

Speaking of Beeders, here is Patrick chronicling our journey through forced picture taking.

Time 05:30.

Cactus to Clouds begins, conveniently enough, in the cacti of Palm Desert which is itself situated in the largest retirement community of Hades. In order to avoid the heat we had to start painfully early in the morning. It took a while to find the trail head so we got started about 30 minutes later than we had planned to.

Time 06:30.

One hour down. Sun is up. Everybody's smiling. We're crisscrossing the mountain and desperately trying to follow the trail marked by white paint blotches which were thankfully fairly easy to see. There were, unfortunately, however, white pain blotches everywhere. I'd the say the three or so diversions we took were scenic, but it's the desert. They were just thorny wastes of time.

Time 07:30.

Second hour up and we're finally through all the switchbacks and over lapping trails. We have now entered the realm of the bees, however. Although you cannot see them they we there. It turns out the desert is full of bees actually. They were likely just doing regular bee things, but with that many in one place you gotta think they were up to no good. Terrorism probably. Thankfully we minded our business and they minded theirs.

Time 08:30.

Third hour up! Finally starting to get some elevation underneath us. Still have no idea how far we have to go and, therefore, still smiling.

Time 09:40.

Fourth hour up. Turns out the fourth hour is a lot like the third hour: lots of hiking through desert. By this time we were far enough to realize we had a long way to go, but not far enough to have any idea exactly how far. It was at this point I began considering selling Beeders to some coyotes in exchange for a taxi ride back into town.

Time 010:30.

Fifth hour. Will we ever get out of this infernal desert?

I must admit. I was getting a little tired now. Patrick nevertheless refused to carry me on his back.

Time 011:40.

Sixth hour! Ooh isn't that lovely?! Yeah. Great. I'm ready to lie down and die. Beeders is still smiling for whatever reason.

Time 12:40.

The seventh hour! The ecology is finally starting to change! No more dried plants, dirt, and lizards. Just pine trees, dirt, and lizards.

Time 13:45.

Hour eight! We're so close we can almost taste it. Patrick was so inspired he decided to jump for this photo. It may or may not have taken about six takes before we got it right. It was around this time that the bronzed wild mountain man passed us up with his hiking stick. I think he was on drugs.

Time 14:05.

The clouds! We made it to the top, sort of! In a sense! We made it to the tram station and level ground which, I decided, was an excellent place for a stop. And for a nap. And to maybe not hike any more ever again.

As noted before technically the top of the Cactus to Clouds trail is the summit of Mount San Jacinto which was about another 2,000 feet in elevation gain, but screw Mount San Jacinto. Some things mankind was never intended to do. I got to spend a great day outside in God's brown Earth with my nephew, and a beautiful tram ride slowly returned us back to the desert. It returned us to the desert in a different part of town thus requiring a 6 mile walk back, but it was a beautiful tram ride down nevertheless. And three days later? A California Angel's game. All in all all good times.

The Best Trip Ever (And A Few Lies)

There's a saying that goes something like, "if you can't say something nice, then just suggest it through thinly veiled generalities." It is very similar to the popular and oft quoted, "turn the other cheek so as to begin your roundhouse kick." It's the moral high ground in our current crazy, mixed up, passive-aggressive, and duplicitous world today. And I am nothing if not moral. Assuming "moral" is a synonym for either "male" or "Caucasian."

As such I have nothing but good things to say about my recent MEDRETE trip with the Army to the Dominican Republic to deliver health care to the those less fortunate. The thick blanket of rules provided at the Foward Operating Base (FOB) gave me a snug sense of security while the daily ration of Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) gave both my jaw a rest and my colon a work out. The feverish pace at which we saw patients taught me how to diagnose a whole array of diseases and medical conditions based on the slightest amount of information -- even if I didn't understand a word they were saying! And the contraband sniffing dog at the Health and Wellness formation? Man, that was one cute dog.

It wasn't all sunshine and unicorns, though. They did make us go to the beach the last day, and take this ridiculous picture.


The smiles were forced. Truthfully, I spent most my time thinking about chow.











Some pictures. Hopefully there'll be more later if the official photo sergeant ever gets back to us with all the photos she took.