Commentary

5-1-07

     Jim and Glen drove me to the Mexican boarder to start my walk.  The park we went to did not open until noon and it was about 8 am.  While I was trying to find the start of the west coast trail a border guard approached Jim and Glen.  Glen flashed his CLPD I.D. and the guard must have thought he was a cop so he was very nice to us.  He said he never heard of the west coast trail but he thought he had seen some kind of trail marker about 5 to 6 miles inland.  We took a few photos and tried to find the markers the border patrol guard told us about.  We could not find any and we looked for hours.  We decided to find the coast again and to find an other starting point.  We found a good start point about 13 to 15 miles as the bird fly’s north of the boarder, south of Ocean Beach.  I started walking and Jim and Glen went to find a casino to gamble.

     I hate La Jolla, Ca.  It’s full of stuck up rich assholes.  When I tried to ask some people for directions they ignored me totally, like I was invisible.  I asked this guy what the next town was and he looked me up and down and walked away from me without saying a word.  I thought of a movie I had seen once about a man that was different from most other people and a group of people were harassing him and he shouts, “I am not an animal”.  So I shouted at him “I am not an animal”. I assume if I did not have a back pack on and had a nice suit on I would have been treated differently.  He walked faster away from me and never turned to look back.

    I am so tired I can hardly move.  I had to get a motel in La Jolla, just writing La Jolla makes me sick to my stomach.  I fell and hurt my right lower leg and my right shoulder and I almost got stuck against a cliff and the rising ocean as the tide came in.  I just made it out.  I had to climb up a very steep cliff with all my equipment and the rocks were wet and slippery.  I used my ax and walking stick to get up. If I did not have that ax I would have been in serious trouble.

    My first day of this hike sucked big-time.  I almost called it off 2 times.  I hope tomorrow is better.  I have to get out of this sick town.  My muscles are really sore.  I am going to go through my back pack to see what I don’t need, it’s too heavy.

5-2-07

   I left the motel early, 6 am and started walking.  I was able to think clearer and finely got out of that sick town La Jolla.  I know it’s not possible that everyone that lives there is a sick piece of shit but everyone I met was.  I did talk with one guy at a starbucks who was really nice and seemed interested about my hike.  We talked for a while and then he left.  He was a tourist from Germany.

    I figured it would be impossible to get lost, just keep the morning sun to your right shoulder and your going north.  Well that does not work if it’s cloudy all day.  Tonight I will have to study the G.P.S. manual that came with the G.P.S. unit.  I know how to use all the features except the compass feature.

   It’s about 6 pm and I found a nice campground that has a hiker’s area for 3 dollars a night.  I think I’m somewhere near Del Mar or Solana Beach.  I feel great today, at about noon I found a sushi joint and I ordered 2 rainbow rolls.  They were too expensive but they were so good.  When I eat sushi its like I get high.  It gives me a rush of energy that last for hours.  I’m not sure if its physicosimatic or what but it works for me.  Day 2 of my hike was perfect, what a difference from yesterday.  I do have a concern though; the toe next to my big toe on my left foot is getting a little painful.  It was hurting a little while I was training and now it’s callused on the tip but hurts around the nail.  I will have to check it regularly because if your feet are messed up that’s it for hiking.  That would be a shame if a fucked up toe stops my hike.

   Well I guess I will call my bro and give him my coordinates also there is a lot more up hills and down than I expected and it has been slowing me down a bit.  Alice took me to a trail in Ridgecrest called Radamaker trail or something like that.  It was a lot of up and down small hills and some steep trails.  I wish I would have trained more on that trail.

5-3-07

  I woke up at about 6 am this morning.  On a scale of 1-10 I probably slept a 5 last night.  Trains kept blowing there horns about every ½ hour.  I was real sore as well this morning.  I guess sleeping on 3/8 in. thick foam matt just is not good if your 50 years old.

  A wanderer stopped at my camp site and started asking me a lot of questions about my tent and gear.  He said his name was Swiss, like my tent, Swiss Gear.  He smelled like shit and asked me if I wanted some kind of “Emergency Orange Electrolyte Drink “, He said he has been living on it for a while.  I told him no thanks I’ve got pills.  He got excited about the fact that you can take electrolytes in pill form, a little too excited.  Just then a cop drove by and he quickly left.  I wish I could tell the difference between crazy homeless people and regular good people that are just down on there luck but I can’t.  I guess the safest thing would be to assume every person that comes up on you traveling is crazy but I think you might miss out on meeting some really good interesting people.

   I might make it a short hike today because I heard that there is a nice hikers camp in Carls Bad and its only about 9 miles from here.  I have learned that Denatured Alcohol works a lot better than Magic Flame Canned Heat and it’s more economical.  Just cut a pop can in half and dump a little Denatured Alcohol in and light it and it’s a nice hot flame.  I will be throughing the Magic Flame away, a few less ounces to carry.

   Well I made it to Carls Bad and my feet were burning.  I went to the camp office to get a hikers site and they said they stopped having hikers sites at there campground because to many homeless drunks would stay there.  Instead of paying 3 dollars I had to pay 25 dollars.  I am pissed.  I’m going to break some sprinklers around my camp site and leave my garbage on the ground, Not really but I’m not a happy camper, wow, that’s the first time I ever used that expression and it made sense.  I would have not stayed here but my feet hurt too much to walk any further today.  I am finding out that hiking the ‘West Coast Trail’, if there is one is not going to be easy.  I guess you have to get the attuide that this is my country and I’ll sleep any where I want to.

  I purchased an air mattress from the camp store for 5 bucks.  I think it’s going to make a big difference if it stays full of air.  I noticed that there is a strangely large number of Navy Helos patrolling the coast.  At least 1 per half hour or so, those big double blade troop carriers.  The next camp site is about 50 miles so I’m going to have to wing it for the next 3 or 4 days, should be interesting.

5-4-07

Bad weather today, cloudy, cold and drizzle.  I feel really good today, I feel like I’m getting stronger and getting rid of some stuff from my back pack I did not need was a good thing, every pound makes a big difference.  I have to walk at least 20 miles today.  I had to stop after about 10 miles to fix my toe.  I developed a blister on my right little toe.  I cleaned it up and put a band aide on it and an extra sock on and it fixed the problem.

   People seem to be getting friendlier as I go north.  For some reason I thought a lot about Goldie today.  I still don’t know what the fuck happened with us.  It was like a relationship on speed.  It usually takes me 2 or 3 years to fuck up a relationship but this one only took a few months.  Well so much for my experiment, (getting married right away without knowing anything about each other), not a good idea. It’s also a good idea to marry someone you love already rather than someone you like a lot and hope to fall in love with after you get married. Also, if you have fallen in love with someone that will never love you back it’s not a good idea to marry someone else just because they have the same number of letters in there first and last name. (Of course I did not do that, which would be something a moron would do)

   I walked all through the daylight hours, at least 20 miles.  It was a good day, much easier to walk when the weather is cool.  I have not had any trouble getting food or water along the coast so far.  I need to start drinking more water.

5-5-07

Happy Cinco de Mayo.  I am in a park listening to some really nice Mexican music.  I think that somehow I got cheated out of having Mexican heritage.  I think my dad and my grandmother on my dad’s side conspired for some reason to say we were Indian and not Mexican. I think Indian or Mexican are much the same anyway.

   I have to get a new tent ASAP.  I’m a moron, I can hardly get in and out of the one I have.  If I sit in my tent at its apex my head hits the top.  I need to get a small/medium dome tent.  It may be a few pounds heavier but I’ve got no choice.  By the way, there is no west coast trail; it seems to be some kind of cruel joke or maybe an urban legend.  I have asked cops, rangers, sheriffs, park people and people living on the coast and no one has ever heard of it.  One old guy I asked said that he thought he heard of it in the late 60s but it was for hippies, then he farted and started picking his nose. His credibility was suspect at that point to me.

   Its my 5^th day hiking and I feel pretty good except for the fact that there is no West Coast Trail that is marked to follow.  I guess I will just keep going north and reading my new map.  The map I got off the internet site of the west coast trail association was orientated wrong, or I was.  I made good distance today, about 20 miles or so again.  I feel good but have a head ache.  Life is definitely suppose to be a verb as my brother Jim likes to say.  I have some good photos I will upload sooner or later.

   I am spending too much money.  I need to eat a lot more than I was expecting.  I guess it’s because I’m burning so many calories.  As I was watching the sun going down tonight I asked myself why I was doing this hike and I came to the conclusion that I don’t know. Why would a man want to walk 1800 miles?  Maybe it’s because I’m feeling old and I want to get as healthy as I can to stave off death.  So many of my friends have died the past few years and they were only in there early fifties.  Maybe it’s because my parents are getting close to the end of there lives and this could be my last adventure because soon I will have the responsibility of taking care of them and then having to take care of my mentally challenged sister.  Maybe because after being married 4 times to 4 wonderful woman and 4 wonderful divorces and having my son in jail and having so many mind numbing jobs and owning 4 businesses  and having 4 children and 11 grandchildren that I can’t remember who I am and have no idea of what I want to do next.  Or maybe it’s something so simple like I have a woman stuck in my brain so deep that this may be the only way to get her out. I think that it’s all of these reasons and more or maybe I’m just a bit goofy. Maybe I'm doing it just to piss Donna off, after all it was her idea to walk the coast.  In reality I guess no reason means anything.  After all think about the average person of 100 years ago.  Does any thing they ever said or did mean anything to anyone now?  I don’t think so.

5-6-07

   Slept pretty good last night.  There was a group of church kids last night that were singing songs about love and God and helping people.  This morning when I woke up and started packing up my stuff my back was really sore and stiff.  I could not even bend over.  Guess what those wonderful church people did… They made a few rude comments as they watched me; one kid said that I walk like Frankenstein.  I was not expecting any help from anyone but I guess if you sing about helping people then you don’t have to really help them.  What a wonderful world.

    I started to get a real bad headache soon after I started walking today. I had to stop about every 15 minutes and put my gear down so my head would stop pounding.  I kept walking and stopping to rest a lot for about 4 hours and then something happened that was very concerning to me.  I somehow was at the same place I was at 3 hours ago.  I must have walked in a circle and I could not understand how that could happen.  I rested for a while and started to pick up my gear to walk again and I could not lift it.  I did not have any strength at all.  I knew something was wrong. I assumed I was dehydrated or had heat stroke.  I was at Capistrano Beach.  I decided to get a cab and find a motel so I could rest and re-hydrate myself. I somehow ended up at a motel in San Juan Capistrano. My head was throbbing worse than any head ache I have ever had.  I took a cold shower and laid down.  I figured I might be in a little bit of trouble because if I did have heat stroke it could be very serious so I was going to sleep and if I was still the same in the morning I would have to call off my hike.

5-7-07

   I slept all afternoon and all night and when I woke up I still had a head ache but not quite as bad.  I picked up my back pack and instantly my head began pounding just like yesterday.  I also felt very cold.  I reluctantly had to call off my hike.  I called Jim and Glen to come and get me.  I am going to go home and see a doctor and rest up a few weeks and pick up were I left off.

5-20-07

    Unfortunately I was very de-hydrated and it’s been two weeks of trying to recuperate and I still get headaches when I try to lift my back pack.  Its looks like I will have to try again some time next year, I hope.  I know some mistakes I made on this attempt. This may sound strange but because I thought that I might find it hard to find restrooms on the hike I think I did not drink enough water.  Next time I will drink much more water and if I can’t find a restroom I will just piss any place I can. I also took 50 lbs of crap at the start and I probly should have took less than ½ of that weight.  I also did not train enough.  I know a lot of mistakes I made and when I’m ready for an other hike I will not make them again. I only ended up walking about 80 miles but it was so fun and I feel so much healthier than I have in years.  I will be eating right and keeping fit and walking every day of the rest of my life.  Thank you Jenna