Tuesday, 9/4/12
One day after Labor Day
5:30 a.m.
Two hours before I need to wake up, the sun is still to weak to creep through the closed blinds and my eyes are crusted and matted half-shut as I fumble around with the four buttons on the $10 water-resistant sports watch that I recently purchased for a backpacking trip in Maine. I can’t seem to figure out the correct button or the morse code combination of buttons to press, and I end up setting the alarm to snooze a total of six times, which gives me the chance to fall back to sleep 6 times to only wake up in a fury 6 times. Finally, I throw the watch out into the hallway for the cat to slap around.
8:30 a.m.
As usual, the train into the city from Queens is clunking along at snail-pace. Wandering mind, I begin to imagine jumping out the window and landing on a coffee cart on the street below—bagels, coffee, and blood—everywhere. The lady sitting next to me is making me grind my teeth. Loud enough for the deaf to hear, she speaks a million miles per hour on her headset in a tongue that I can only describe as a jackhammer of nerve-pinching tones and spiraling ferocity. Her conversation is very climactic. It grows stronger and stronger, louder and louder. Like oxygen to a fire, every quick breath she manages to sneak in between her ceaseless yapping stokes the flames. 10 minutes into this epic phone conversation, I swear her head actually has the potential for spontaneous human combustion—or maybe it’s is me that is about to explode. Abruptly, the conversation ends. Thank God, our train is now underground. Still, she manages to continue the conversation aloud with herself to get the last word in with whatever imaginary or tremendous battle she was having about nothing and everything.
8:50 a.m.
“Attention passengers, due to train traffic this downtown train will skip the 33rd, 28th, and 23rd stations. The next stop will be 14th Street Union Square.”
Damn it, man. Why this train of all the trains? I’m supposed to get to work on time. Now, I’ll have to walk/jog seven more blocks.
8:55 a.m.
As I’m lunging up the stairs from the station to street-level, a suit quickly veers around the railing and makes his way downward at full-speed while clearly seeing that I am ascending the same side.
“Get out the way, I’m in a hurry here!”
You stupid son of a… Do us all a favor and go dive into the East River and take a deep breath!
9:07 a.m.
I’m at work. And I’m making a pot of coffee without spilling a single drop of blood.
Baxter State Park – Home of Mount Katahdin:
Maine’s Highest Mountain Peak
Over the recent Labor Day weekend, I found myself with an opportunity to get outdoors and far, far away from the city. In college, I had developed an interest for and became well acquainted with backpacking. My main group of friends and roommates were/are backpackers and general outdoors enthusiasts. Since my first backpacking trip to Laurel-Snow Natural Area (just outside of Dayton, TN), my feet have always been in tune with the rocky, rooty trails of the wilderness.
(correct me if I’m wrong)
Unlike traditional camping that usually entails setting up a tent next to the car, backpacking involves medium to long hikes to a destination—preferably away from the sounds of the highway. Backpacking can be a strenuous but rewarding journey when you finally reach that secluded spot in the wilderness where the feet of others seldom step—places where you don’t have to worry about being pushed, shoved, and bumped around. It’s just you, the ground, and the clean air—the stillness, the calm, and the silence.
After graduating college, getting married, moving to NYC, and starting my “career”; I haven’t found much opportunity to enjoy the outdoors like I used to. Actually, this past weekend was the first time that I had been backpacking in almost 3 years—an absolute crime against humanity and, more importantly, myself. I’ve been lucky to make a friend that shares a common admiration for nature. So, we set out for a 4 day trip into the mountains of Baxter State Park.
We started out of Brooklyn for our 9-hour drive at 3 a.m. on Wednesday and arrived in the small town of Millinocket, Maine that afternoon. Before heading into the park we stopped off at a small cafe called Soup to Nuts. When in Maine, you take advantage of the cheap lobster. The bowl of mac-n-cheese-n-lobster was the perfect meal. As we started our way out on the road to the park, we picked up a backpacker. I imagined he was probably an Appalachian Trail hiker that was finishing up or beginning (Baxter is the beginning or end, depending on how you look at it). Long-bearded and wide-eyed, our young friend held up typical conversation for about three minutes before he revealed his true nature: the wandering evangelist.
“I’m what I guess you’d consider a nomadic-type. I live all over the place but never anywhere for too long. I belong to a community that believes in a mixture of ancient Judaism and Christian thought that upholds the belief that Jesus is the true son of God.”
Oh, brother.
“I spend a lot of my time at various points of the AT, encouraging hikers to get to the end. You see, all of these people, they aren’t doing this hike to prove something to themselves or to the world. They are trying to fill an empty space in their lives. We want them to know that happiness is not found at the end of the journey. It is found right now, where you stand.”
At this point in his spiel, he showed us the bottom of his pack. It was covered in frost.
“See that? That’s dry ice. I have a lot of meat to give to the hikers,” he said with a big grin.
I was reading Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring during the trip. One passage came to mind as our nomad friend spoke of his conquest to fill the holes of all those souls—luring their famished stomachs, fresh out of the 100-miles-wilderness section, with heaping plates of meat:
“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those that wander are lost.”
Perhaps, the irony I find is that our new friend is the one on the constant move, assuming the rest of the world is lost; or at least ATers are lost. Nice and well-intentioned as he is—I just couldn’t relate. He sure did sound confident enough that he’s got it all figured out though. We dropped the nameless wanderer off at the park’s welcome center, bid him farewell on his endeavors, and headed on down the dirt road to the trail head.
To be continued…