Ups & Downs

Chapter 1: Doubt, Dither and Ditz

Don, June 19^th

While I waited in the British Airways lounge at JFK Airport in New York City and David trolled for things to eat (which is something he spends a substantial portion of his time doing), I tried to control my growing sense of panic. The past 10 days had been characterized by what I had started to refer to as the three “Ds”: doubt, dither and ditz.

First, doubt. Was I absolutely out of my mind? Who was I kidding, thinking I could carry my clothes, shelter, food, cooking utensils, emergency gear and all the other things necessary to keep me alive and dry and warm while walking up and down mountains for 2 months? Why would I want to? I was nearly 56 years old, for crying out loud! And it’s not as though I didn’t know what I was getting into. Five years earlier my father-in-law, Richard, and I had walked the length of Great Britain “B&B-to-B&B” from the southwest tip of Cornwall to the northeast tip of Scotland – nearly 1,100 miles in 60 days. While I got in great shape and saw a lot of wonderful scenery and de-stressed more than I had for 30 years, I lost 25 pounds (which I didn’t have to lose), and I did damage to my feet and knees from which I still hadn’t recovered. I also spent the following 4 months hungry 24 hours a day – your body gets used to consuming 6,000 calories a day and wants to continue, whether you still need it or not. And did I mention the rain? That July was the third wettest in England’s history, and that’s really saying something. So I understood what this walk was likely to be. But I was doing it anyway. Sheesh!

As for dither – there are a thousand things to consider and plan and buy and pack for a trek like this. If you’re on top of a mountain miles away from the nearest civilization and you realize that you’ve forgotten something fairly important like, say, your tent or the toilet paper, you’re going to wish you’d planned and packed better. But since I’m retired and for the past 10 days I’d had nothing to do, I couldn’t get myself excited about doing much. So I’d head off to my local camping store in Boulder, Colorado, to buy a box of waterproof matches. Then I’d come home. Then I’d go to Wal-Mart (which is next door to the camping store) to buy some pain killer tablets. Then I’d come home. Then I’d go back to the camping store to buy some camping soap. Then I’d come home. Of course, there was lots of time spent sitting and staring at the wall in between. And so it went for about 7 days. Then, in the last 3 days, I really got serious.

That’s when I proceeded to ditz. Everything I touched disappeared. Things I was sure I had packed were nowhere to be found. I’d search my backpack three times, then turn the house over four times before I would find what was missing – usually in the first place I’d looked 3 hours earlier. Finally everything was packed and I resolved not to look at it or touch it until I left. But on the kitchen counter, I found a lens from a pair of eyeglasses. OK, I thought, it must have popped out of my spare pair of reading glasses as I was packing them. So I opened the backpack and looked for the glasses. They weren’t there. I searched the entire house. Still nothing. Finally, on my camping supply shelf in the basement, which was the first place I’d looked after searching through the backpack, I found a plastic bag with the glasses. And my headlamp. And my soap. And my toothbrush and toothpaste and twenty other absolute essentials. If the lens hadn’t popped out, I would’ve ended up on the trail the first night without much of what I needed. At that point I started getting really scared. If not for the fact that nearly the same thing had happened to me before starting the walk through Britain, I would’ve thought that I’d suddenly gone seriously senile. I hoped it was just nerves.