Blistered Kind Of Love Read Online Free
Author: Angela Ballard, Duffy Ballard
animals, dusty high school basketball trophies, and the backpackerâs mess hall that was oozing out of boxes, creeping over chairs, and covering every inch of carpet before me. Military Meals-Ready-to-Eat (MREs), energy bars, Snickers bars, cereal bars, instant potatoes, mac ânâ cheese, cheesy crackers, dried fruits, dried peppers and other vegetables, dried spaghetti sauce, turkey jerky, freeze-dried mealsâstuff that had been dried andthen dried again, because it just wasnât dried enough. Even our drinks were dry. There were bags of instant coffee, hot chocolate mix, powdered milk, and Tang, lots of delicious Tang. Sealing everything up into what I hoped were airtight Ziplocs, I spent four days carefully distributing delightfully dry camping meals into sixteen re-supply boxes.
But even after each box got its food rations it wasnât nearly complete. There were more piles to be picked throughâa thousand ibuprofen tablets, a thousand multivitamins, seventy-six AA and AAA batteries, thirty-six rolls of film, a twenty-four-pack of toilet paper, fourteen rolls of athletic tape, two bottles of povidone-iodine solution for our med kit, and six of the same for purifying water.
While I filled boxes, Duffy weighed every piece of gear, down to the quarter ounce. Then he began generating lists: lists of re-supply points, lists of food and equipment, lists of lists. All of these were subsequently downloaded onto our Palm Pilotsâprimarily for the purpose of reminding ourselves how good we were at making lists.
Other logistics also needed to be taken care of before we could disappear from normal life. Visa bills had to be paid in full if we wanted our credit ratings to survive our adventure. We needed to acquire air-ambulance and medical insurance (it can cost more than $50,000 to be airlifted out of the wilderness). Apartment subletters had to be found and debriefed. Health and dental check-ups had to be scheduled and attended (weâd heard of one couple whose hiking trip had been interrupted by an urgent need for a root canal). Duffy had to register for fall classes and I had reams of paperwork to complete regarding my leave of absence from work. And on and on.
It was all vastly annoying. The whole point was to get away from this sort of drudgery. I dreamed of savoring majestic vistas with looking-glass lakes, but instead I was explaining to Jennifer at Comcast Cable why I wouldnât be watching much HBO that summer.
Worst of all, planning for a long-distance hike seemed as potentially fruitless as it was frustrating. Historically, only five percent of PCT hikers actually make it the whole way, and out of those who quit, most do so in the first couple weeks. In the past few years, with the increasing popularity of lightweightbackpacking techniques and refined itineraries, success rates have approached twenty-five percent, but one out of four is still pretty discouraging.
The combination of the magnitude of the planning effort and the odds of success was disquieting. Taking care of the logistics would be immensely gratifying if the trip worked out, but if it didnâtâwell, then the reward wouldnât be a completed trip but a planned one. The result of the uncertainty was a sensation not unlike that which you might feel if you planned a wedding but were forced to accept a caveat from the groom indicating there was only a one in four chance heâd show up.
In an effort to improve our odds, we enrolled in
Hiking 101
at a local community college. I figured that it would be a good practical introduction for me and, at a minimum, a decent review for Duffy. We arrived for the first class notebooks in hand and pencils sharpened, ready to learn the holy commandments of hiking. Our companions in this mission were a group of middle-aged urbanites and an instructor who was still reliving his days in the military. There were eighteen people in all: fifteen women, Duffy, our instructor, and
But even after each box got its food rations it wasnât nearly complete. There were more piles to be picked throughâa thousand ibuprofen tablets, a thousand multivitamins, seventy-six AA and AAA batteries, thirty-six rolls of film, a twenty-four-pack of toilet paper, fourteen rolls of athletic tape, two bottles of povidone-iodine solution for our med kit, and six of the same for purifying water.
While I filled boxes, Duffy weighed every piece of gear, down to the quarter ounce. Then he began generating lists: lists of re-supply points, lists of food and equipment, lists of lists. All of these were subsequently downloaded onto our Palm Pilotsâprimarily for the purpose of reminding ourselves how good we were at making lists.
Other logistics also needed to be taken care of before we could disappear from normal life. Visa bills had to be paid in full if we wanted our credit ratings to survive our adventure. We needed to acquire air-ambulance and medical insurance (it can cost more than $50,000 to be airlifted out of the wilderness). Apartment subletters had to be found and debriefed. Health and dental check-ups had to be scheduled and attended (weâd heard of one couple whose hiking trip had been interrupted by an urgent need for a root canal). Duffy had to register for fall classes and I had reams of paperwork to complete regarding my leave of absence from work. And on and on.
It was all vastly annoying. The whole point was to get away from this sort of drudgery. I dreamed of savoring majestic vistas with looking-glass lakes, but instead I was explaining to Jennifer at Comcast Cable why I wouldnât be watching much HBO that summer.
Worst of all, planning for a long-distance hike seemed as potentially fruitless as it was frustrating. Historically, only five percent of PCT hikers actually make it the whole way, and out of those who quit, most do so in the first couple weeks. In the past few years, with the increasing popularity of lightweightbackpacking techniques and refined itineraries, success rates have approached twenty-five percent, but one out of four is still pretty discouraging.
The combination of the magnitude of the planning effort and the odds of success was disquieting. Taking care of the logistics would be immensely gratifying if the trip worked out, but if it didnâtâwell, then the reward wouldnât be a completed trip but a planned one. The result of the uncertainty was a sensation not unlike that which you might feel if you planned a wedding but were forced to accept a caveat from the groom indicating there was only a one in four chance heâd show up.
In an effort to improve our odds, we enrolled in
Hiking 101
at a local community college. I figured that it would be a good practical introduction for me and, at a minimum, a decent review for Duffy. We arrived for the first class notebooks in hand and pencils sharpened, ready to learn the holy commandments of hiking. Our companions in this mission were a group of middle-aged urbanites and an instructor who was still reliving his days in the military. There were eighteen people in all: fifteen women, Duffy, our instructor, and
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