text:
Prologue: A Lost World
In the Chinese town of Qufu, in Shandong province, is a forest of thousand-year-old cypresses; "jumbled up at their feet" are "acres and acres" of orderly graves, 2,000 years of descendants of Kǒngzi (Confucius). His mound is the biggest (10 feet high) and most distinct, of course, and set apart from the others. It is little more than an "eminent pile of dirt."
Even now, Hattie Kong, a sixty-eight-year-old American citizen, remembers the site. She grew up in Qingdao, a nearby cosmopolitan port city once occupied by the Germans and now known for its "charming Bavarian architecture." She can picture her mother, a former missionary who was disavowed for marrying a Chinaman, standing in front of the "anti-monument" and trying to get eight-year-old Hattie to appreciate the spiritual aspects of the site.
Modern Chinese people are more interested in new things than old, wondering if women should really have to obey their husbands as children were expected to obey their parents and why only the male Kongs and their wives are allowed to be buried here. (Unless the men are bald; then they are not allowed to be buried here either.) Nevertheless, Hattie grew up learning to sweep her relatives' graves every spring and on other commemorative days.
When Hattie was fifteen, her father's mother proudly announced that they had found someone willing to marry Hattie despite her mixed blood. Later, Hattie's mother adamantly proclaimed that Hattie must have a choice about who she marries. Hattie's father wore Western clothes, took English lessons, and agreed with his wife; however, two months later he stopped wearing Western clothes, stopped eating Western food, and stopped reading his Bible.
When Hattie heard, decades later, that the graveyard had been desecrated by the Red Guards, who robbed the graves and even stole the dirt in the mounds, she had nightmares. She was sickened to learn that the villagers she once knew well had helped these ravagers destroy "thousands of years of tradition." Years later, someone would inform the Kongs where all the bodies were if they wanted to reconstruct the graves.
The ravagers spared Confucius's broken steles (tall tombstones). Some claim to have gotten some of his bones, although they disintegrated within a few days. Hattie, a former researcher and biology teacher, knows this is "hogwash." Confucius was her ancestor, but she thinks he was an obsessive compulsive misogynist and "a nut." He did, however, speak about sincerity, humility, integrity, and goodness. He was a "godless fundamentalist." Family English lessons continued, five hours a day.
She and her parents broke from those "old ways," and when she looks in the mirror now she sees her "parents' youth and hope." Her husband Joe's ashes were sprinkled from a hang glider, and her best friend Lee's ashes were dug into a peony bed. Hattie wonders where she will be buried when she dies. Her only companions now are her dogs, so perhaps she will be buried in a pet cemetery.
Hattie I: I'll but Lie and Bleed Awhile (Pages 11-20)
Last week a Cambodian family moved in down the hill from Hattie Kong. Riverlake is an old, all-American town, but things are changing now with the arrival of people from other places. Hattie has lived here for two years, ever since Joe and Lee died at almost the same time. (She thought she should have gotten some kind of discount at the crematorium.) Hattie is still sometimes "lonely beyond words."
Hattie lives on an open, cleared knoll; the Cambodian family is moving onto an awkwardly placed parcel of land down the hill that is barely cleared and nearly always wet. Hattie watches as two halves of a trailer, the Cambodians' temporary home, drive by down the hill. Inside one of them, she sees a "tea-skinned pipsqueak of a thing with a swinging black ponytail and a shocking-pink jacket" clinging to the trailer's kitchen. Her job is to keep everything from falling out, but Hattie can see the girl is not strong enough to do her task. Hattie admires her for doing her best. (This comes from her years of teaching, although she had to retire after Joe and Lee died, unable to return to the campus where they had all taught.) When the trailer hits a pothole, a drawer pops out.
Hattie picks up the cheap veneered drawer, planning to return it to the owners. She spends a few rainy days painting bamboo until the sun finally shines again. Outside, Hattie appreciates the landscape, including the trial balloon marking the site of the proposed new cell phone tower. The town will have a meeting about it, which Hattie will attend, but today she visits her new neighbors.
Although the land is swamped, the trailer is in a relatively good spot. Hattie takes the drawer and some cookies to welcome her neighbors. A diminutive man answers her knock. Although he is probably in his mid-sixties (her age), he clearly has been damaged by life under an oppressive regime. His look is so blank and unresponsive that the closed door seemed...
(The entire section is 503 words.)
Hattie I: I'll but Lie and Bleed Awhile (Pages 21-33)
Hattie Kong is no artist, but she has to re-create herself and painting helps her do that. As she paints, she listens to the sounds of her Cambodians: pounding, chopping, frying, and washing. She is delighted to be able to hear them because she suffers from some hearing loss; she is equally delighted to be able to see them out of one of her windows. "Not spying, exactly."
Little movement happens until late in the afternoons when the girl sits outside and swats flies as she works either with a knife or a mortar and pestle. Today her jacket is zipped up because she has the baby tucked inside, and both of them are squealing. As soon as Chhung hovers in the doorway, both of them are silent, and the girl begins awkwardly peeling a carrot with her knife.
A delivery man rattles down the hill. Hattie watches the girl greet him and sees a woman in the doorway. Chhung and a boy with a long, blond (obviously died) ponytail receive a large package. Hattie thinks it may be a television, although it is larger than any she has ever seen. That night she confirms her guess as she sees a gigantic television screen playing some show featuring Asians with cell phones. The dogs bark and Hattie stashes her binoculars just before Judy Tell-All appears at the door.
The gossipy woman tells Hattie about the arrival of Carter Hatch. Hatch is the middle son of a professor who died in his laboratory at the age of ninety-nine and whose older brother is still practicing science. Hatch knows Hattie lives here and that her husband is dead (cancer, even though he never smoked) because he took the time to find out, and Judy is certain Hattie wants to know. She does, but she does not tell Judy that.
The Town Hall meeting is the next night. The cell phone people scheduled this meeting for before the "summerlings" would return, hoping for less resistance, but the room is soon nearly overflowing. The gossip begins as soon as Hattie sits...
(The entire section is 505 words.)
Hattie I: I'll but Lie and Bleed Awhile (Pages 34-44)
Hattie Kong blames only herself for getting e-mail when the town first got DSL. Now she is besieged by Chinese relatives, educated people, many of whom live in the United States, who want her to send her mother's remains from Iowa back to Qufu. That is the tradition they all learned from birth: "Fallen leaves return to their roots." But it is the twenty-first century and the idea seems outrageous to her.
Despite their insistence that her mother's body belongs in the Kong family forest and their attempts to create guilt by invoking ancestors, bad luck, and tradition, Hattie remains steadfast in her refusal. Each one writes to blame her, indirectly, for any trouble the rest of the family is having either in America or China, based on their superstitions. She has one word for all of their ridiculous arguments—hogwash.
Riverlake is north, so it is frigid until nearly April, and everyone wears appropriate clothing except for sixty-seven-year-old Carter Hatch, who does not cover his balding head and wears nothing but jeans and a flannel shirt with the top two buttons open. Today he comes unexpectedly to visit Hattie, and she is shaken as she watches him bound up her driveway carrying his ancient book bag.
She opens the door, and both of them are surprised enough that their greeting is rather formal. Hattie lets the dogs run outside, and the adults begin to talk. She notices that his shirt is open because the buttons are missing, and so much of how Hatch looks and sounds reminds her of their young days in the laboratory together.
Hattie is shocked when Hatch tells her that his brother, Reedie, died in a drunk-driving accident; at the time, no one knew where to reach her to let her know. Hatch offers his condolences to her for Joe's death, but all Hattie can do is cry at another loss. Hatch wonders if he somehow contributed to Reedie's shocking early death because Reedie always felt as if he had to somehow "catch up" to Hatch, even though he had his own research laboratory that Hatch says was actually doing better work than his own.
He has brought his wet suit and a towel and wants Hattie to go swimming with him in the nearly frozen lake. Her wet suit is packed away but she manages to find it, surprised that her body is so unusually aware as she zips herself into the neoprene suit. When she goes back to the porch, Hatch is gone. He may be already be down at the lake, but she does not retrieve her glasses so she can look. She takes off her cap, calls her dogs, and unzips her suit.
Hattie I: I'll but Lie and Bleed Awhile (Pages 45-55)
Hattie can see Chhung and his son working behind their trailer. She thinks the boy should be in school and wonders if the huge garden they are creating will get enough sun to survive. From her teaching experience, she thinks the trouble this family had in Cambodia has followed them to America; if they were thriving, they would not have come to Riverlake.
The boy is strong and stocky, dressed in the city fashion, and he is digging hard in the clay soil. Hattie thinks about telling Chhung to put sand under the clay for drainage. The girl brings the baby over to watch; when the child starts crying, a tiny woman appears with a bottle. She is untraditionally lovely and graceful as she steps through the mud like a dancer;...
(The entire section is 498 words.)
Hattie I: I'll but Lie and Bleed Awhile (Pages 56-64)
Hattie's walking group asks about her past relationship with Hatch, romantically assuming he has come back to Riverlake to be with her. Hattie says he both was and was not the "love of her youth." She reminds them that Carter may not have come back here just for her and that she did marry Joe, whom she loved, and had a son, Josh. Hattie had loved Joe, "brusque as he could be," and still reaches for him in her sleep.
Hattie says Carter disappeared when she took too long to find her wetsuit. She has not seen him for about 35 years, except at his father's funeral 10 years ago, where they did not speak. The rest of his family had been "floored" and pleased that she came. Hattie lived with the Hatches when...
(The entire section is 504 words.)
Hattie I: I'll but Lie and Bleed Awhile (Pages 65-74)
On the way to the farmer's market, Hattie learns that Sarun wrecked two cars while racing and is lucky to be alive. Sophy is outraged that the organic produce at the market costs so much more than what she buys at the supermarket. The girl helps her mother because Mum will never learn to speak English.
Hattie asks to buy Sophy some beautiful peonies, but the girl refuses; Hattie sneaks them anyway and later Sophy is thrilled. Hattie explains that her best friend, Lee, used to love peonies. Hattie has to convince Sophy to borrow a vase (all the Chhungs have is a bottle) and to come in for a snack. Although Sophy is fascinated by all the animals, she pets them timidly.
As Sophy feeds Annie some ice cream,...
(The entire section is 453 words.)
Hattie I: I'll but Lie and Bleed Awhile (Pages 75-87)
As Hattie and Hatch walk arm-in-arm toward his cottage, Hattie thinks that so much and yet nothing has happened between them. In his woodshop, Hatch shows her his "skin-on-frame kayak-in-progress." He appreciates the Inuit philosophy that valued fishing, boats, and survival more than material things and cared more for this life than the next.
The name of his boat is Disconcerted because his life has become "one long concerted effort," and he wants to get off track. For his work on genomes, his brother Anderson is expecting the Nobel Prize, which his father never got and only half-wanted, so Hatch is not under much pressure.
They mention Hatch's father's funeral. Hatch was glad she came,...
(The entire section is 502 words.)
Hattie I: I'll but Lie and Bleed Awhile (Pages 88-98)
Hattie's son Josh works for the radio, occasionally e-mailing his mother to let her know what stories he is working on and where he is. Each time she hears from him is rare enough that it seems like "an event."
Today he calls and talks about the girl (also a reporter) he has been dating for two months, Serena. She is the daughter of a diplomat, a "third-culture kid" who has three passports; he is meeting her parents in Dehli this weekend. She is twenty-three and Josh is thirty-two, but she believes worrying about such things is old fashioned.
Josh and Hattie tease, but sometimes Hattie wonders if her son is hiding behind his joking as much as behind his reporting. His father Joe wanted him to be...
(The entire section is 506 words.)
Hattie I: I'll but Lie and Bleed Awhile (Pages 99-107)
At the grocery store, Hattie tells Everett she is sorry about "his news." He bitterly says he has wasted 37 years, nearly his entire life. Not quite knowing what to say next, Hattie says she was married for 31 years before her husband died of cancer. This seems to sidetrack Everett for a moment and he commiserates with Hattie over her loss, but soon he is recounting his own woes.
Ginny's father was a farmer. After he died of heart trouble, Ginny (Everett's wife) suddenly found Jesus, lost the farm, and wanted Everett gone. Last week she put all his clothes outside in the rain; he brought them in and hung them in their living room to dry, high enough that Ginny could not reach them because of her bad hip. The...
(The entire section is 503 words.)
Sophy: How They Even Got Here (Pages 111-121)
When he is feeling happy, Sophy's father talks about how a country must have two wheels: religion and the law. It only runs smoothly—runs at all—when the wheels are equally strong. Pol Pot corrupted the wheel of the law and crippled Cambodia.
Chhung talks about the old days when Cambodians were strong, educated, and advancing; then a series of invasions began. This is history, but it also explains why the Chhungs are so poor today.
Chhung's "real wife" was a Chinese Cambodian like him; she was tall, rich, beautiful, elegant, multilingual, and proper in every way. When they got married, Chhung stood on the graves of his ancestors to tell them, and a white flower...
(The entire section is 507 words.)
Sophy: How They Even Got Here (Pages 122-131)
Chhung's first name was Souen, but he had to have a city name when he moved there and changed it to Ratanak. He had to change it back to Souen when the Khmer Rouge made everyone leave Phnom Penh. City names are difficult for Mum to pronounce, so she sometimes still calls him Souen. She has not learned English, she says, because it requires speaking. She is good with her hands, but she is not good with her mouth. Chhung says she just likes to act deaf and dumb, like she did in Phnom Penh.
Mum believes the reason she speaks so little is because of the teacher who lived next door to them in their last town. She walked around nearly naked, and Chhung, of course, liked to look at her. The woman was educated, spoke English,...
(The entire section is 472 words.)
Sophy: How They Even Got Here (Pages 132-142)
Sophy is taken to a group home for girls known to be a "training program for whores." Others begin to look down on her sisters because of Sophy, and soon they are getting in trouble too.
Sophan runs away with a Vietnamese boy and Sopheap runs away with a Latino drug dealer. Sophan's best friend, a Cambodian girl, is named valedictorian of her class. Sophy now understands that her family's problems are not due to their nationality.
Sarun is the "lucky one." The worst that happens to him is that he is beaten up at school as well as at home; in Cambodia, children become civilized by being beaten by anyone in authority: monks, teachers, and parents. Chhung sees it as his responsibility to beat Sarun....
(The entire section is 504 words.)
Sophy: How They Even Got Here (Pages 143-150)
Sophy has begun praying to something other than the Buddha, and she knows her parents would not approve. Being Cambodian means being Buddhist, but the blue car from the second church (after the church that brought them here changed pastors and quit supporting the Chhungs) keeps coming to the trailer. Mum always says no and the mute driver, Lynn, is never offended; but one day Sophy asks her father (who is high) if she can go and he agrees.
Sophy loads Gift into the car, eager to see different things on this drive than she usually sees on the way to the grocery store. No other houses have stacked crates instead of steps, and many of them have flowers and other lovely things; the sight of one quaint house makes her cry....
(The entire section is 482 words.)
Sophy: How They Even Got Here (Pages 151-161)
Several weeks later, the church holds its yearly "special camp meeting." Sophy enjoys the activities and the food, and she feels special when she is able to meet the girls from her Bible study, her friends, in the midst of so many strangers.
The preacher talks about all the times in his life when he did bad things, followed by Jesus talking to him and helping him to change. According to the preacher, God only chastises His children to help them change and become more like Him.
When the preacher asks for those who are "carrying a weight," an inescapable burden of sin that weighs them down and keeps them from experiencing joy and freedom, to come to the altar, Sophy's friend Renee walks up and Sophy...
(The entire section is 501 words.)
Hattie II: Rising to Fight Again (Pages 165-175)
There is an unknown white van in Riverlake, the kind of van used for carrying equipment rather than people. Hattie sees it drive up and down the street until it finally stops in front of the Chhungs; when Sarun gets into the back of it, Hattie sees four or five black-haired kids before the van roars away.
When Hattie later tells Sophy about the van incident, Sophy does not react, but she is clearly upset by the news. Hattie tries to comfort her, but Sophy says Hattie does not understand. Sarun had said he would quit the gang and her family is trying to start over, so Sophy is silently distraught.
Chhung and Sarun used to dig together, but now Chhung positions himself in a chair, keeping guard over the pit...
(The entire section is 503 words.)
Hattie II: Rising to Fight Again (Pages 176-186)
Everett is waiting on the street corner for Hattie's walking group to pass him; when they do, he casually joins them. The ladies say they do not mind, but they find "a man in their midst" a bit disconcerting, especially since it becomes clear that he wants something.
After walking in companionable silence (and seeing Jill Jenkins riding with Neddy Needham, which causes a stir), Everett announces that Ginny has changed the locks on the door to the house he built. She claims the house is hers because it was paid for with the money from the sale of her father's farm, ignoring the fact that she and Everett have been married for 37 years.
Now Everett lives in a tent and is "neighbors with a rose...
(The entire section is 501 words.)
Hattie II: Rising to Fight Again (Pages 187-198)
Hattie meeting Hatch was unlikely, but they met through unusual circumstances.
When the fighting in China began, Hattie's mother begged a missionary couple who had just lost their daughter in the fighting to take Hattie to America as their daughter. A few cosmetic changes, and Hattie passed as their daughter; soon after, she was eating dinner with her mother's family in Iowa. Everything there was different.
Grandpa Amos thanked God for bringing Hattie there, but Hattie's grandmother was more critical. Both grandparents preached damnation and salvation to Hattie. It was not feasible for Hattie to stay with them, so her Uncle Jeremy, an anthropologist, sent her to his friends, fellow scientists who lived...
(The entire section is 509 words.)
Hattie II: Rising to Fight Again (Pages 199-206)
After majoring in biology in college, Hattie got a job teaching Chinese at a private school. She liked it well enough to stay until Doctor Hatch asked her if she liked her job. When she said she liked some parts but not others, he suggested she should "go back into science."
By this time, Hattie no longer avoided Carter, and he arrived at the house during this conversation. Doctor Hatch reminded her that she was quite good at science, something she had forgotten. Hattie had a natural interest in how things worked and understood that there were many things she did not know about the world.
Carter winked at her but kept his distance; Hattie tried to focus on her conversation with his father. She had always...
(The entire section is 503 words.)
Hattie II: Rising to Fight Again (Pages 207-219)
Somebody from the church donates a computer to Sophy's family, and Sophy immediately contacts her sisters via e-mail. She excitedly tells Hattie about their lives and says she tries to talk to them about her newly found faith. She is worried about Hattie, too, wondering if she is "with Christ."
Hattie explains that her mother was a missionary to China who eventually discovered she could no longer try to convert people, unwilling to believe that baptism is the "only door to a sanctified life." She believed people are more important than whether they are with Christ or not.
Sophy thinks about this, and Hattie asks if her church teaches that her family is condemned to hell because they do not believe...
(The entire section is 502 words.)
Hattie II: Rising to Fight Again (Pages 220-229)
Hattie has quit giving Chinese lessons to Sophy now that she is going to school; Chhung asks her to give Mum English lessons instead. She offers to teach him as well, but he declines; however, he turns the television off and pulls his chair quite close when she is teaching Mum.
Today is September 12, the day after the terrorist attacks, and Hattie tries to explain the Chhungs that everything in America has changed. As she describes what is almost indescribable, Chhung thinks it is just a movie he would not like, and Hattie realizes the thousands of tragic deaths are nothing compared to the millions the Chhungs and even her own parents have seen.
Eventually Chhung confidently says the Americans will quickly...
(The entire section is 494 words.)
Hattie II: Rising to Fight Again (Pages 230-241)
Everett's new home is "driving [Ginny] nuts." She feels as if Everett is always watching her. The gossipy townspeople turn on Ginny; they are people who, "when they see a wall falling, come to help push."
Sarun, once deferential to his father, is now arrogant and brazen. Chhung drinks too much, and constantly yells at Sarun. One night Hattie sees Sarun with his hands fastened behind his back and Chhung beating him with what looks like a belt. The beating stops and Sophy brings her father something to drink; Hattie is relieved until the beating resumes. Chhung has traded the belt for a knife.
Hattie calls 911 and runs down the hill. She hears banging and crashing inside the trailer and pounds on the...
(The entire section is 504 words.)
Hattie II: Rising to Fight Again (Pages 242-255)
Hattie has trouble concentrating on her walking group's gossip (instigated by Ginny) about five thousand dollars worth of missing plywood. Instead she thinks about her conversation with Hatch. When she gets home, Hattie discovers her beloved dog Cato has died. She cries as she drags him out of the house. Cato was with her through Joe's and Lee's deaths, and now Hattie has no one to remember them with her.
Josh calls to tell her about meeting his girlfriend's parents. It went well and Serena's mother was glad to learn that Josh is part Chinese. If the couple ever has children, they will be a blend of many cultures. Hattie does not tell him that Cato died.
A fire was set at the construction site which...
(The entire section is 501 words.)
Hattie II: Rising to Fight Again (Pages 256-269)
Sopheap and Sophan are just in Riverlake for a visit, since it seemed as if Sarun might die. The doctors drilled holes in his head to release the pressure, and now their brother is likely to live. Sophy explains that Chhung "went wild" because Sarun would not—or could not—extricate himself from the gang. First the gang brought the Chhungs a television set, then the members kept sending Sarun e-mails, and then Sarun went back to doing things with them. This infuriated Chhung, even though Sarun gave his father money. A policeman came just to question Sarun, but their father lost control.
Hattie hired someone to come clean the bloody room. If anyone asks, the girls are supposed to say that an attacker hurt Sarun....
(The entire section is 505 words.)
Everett: What Went Wrong, Now (Pages 273-284)
Everett sits in his tree-house shack and wishes he were somewhere else. He also wishes the Cambodian boy (Sarun) would get better and Ginny would again be the girl he married instead of a meddling woman who has brought trouble on an innocent family. Ginny claims her life is better and more in control now that she has put "Christ on the throne" of her life, but Everett thinks Ginny has now put her father's farm on the throne and everything is in disorder. He wants to tell the entire story of Ginny's father, the man people called Rex the Farmer King, and he is going to put truth on the throne.
Rex's barn used to hold fifteen thousand bales of hay. Everett used to load the barn himself, an exhausting task. He...
(The entire section is 509 words.)
Everett: What Went Wrong, Now (Pages 285-308)
By the time Everett and Ginny return home, they have decided to move back to Riverlake and help Rex with the farm. It has been in their family for over a hundred years and all of Ginny's family is buried there. They do not tell Rex they are coming, but he was tearfully grateful. Things are difficult, but the three of them begin to make progress on the farm. Ginny and Everett are glad to be on the farm, and Rex is relaxing a bit, as he should be able to do.
But Ginny has been making her way through her father's accounts and realizes Rex and the farm are in financial trouble. Everett knows that Rex knows it, too, and he hates the thought of having to sell any of his land, especially if his nearest neighbors buy it. Next to...
(The entire section is 496 words.)
Hattie III: The Pride of Riverlake (Pages 311-323)
Hattie continues to get e-mails from her family, accusing her of forgetting their pain and desperation. Perhaps that is true, but Hattie has also experienced despair. She thinks of the World Trade Center being destroyed, Sarun lying in a hospital bed, and Chhung wanting to kill himself. He smokes, drinks, and sits silently; his silence is just as terrifying as his yelling once was.
Mum wonders where she can take her family where there are no gangs or churches, and Hattie does not know what to say. Mum prays all the time now and has chopped off her hair; she is as disengaged from the family as Chhung. Sophy takes over her mother's cleaning jobs, though Hattie offers to find someone else to do it. Hattie cooks Chinese...
(The entire section is 499 words.)
Hattie III: The Pride of Riverlake (Pages 324-337)
After reading her grandfather's letter, Hattie wonders if he would forgive her for returning her mother's body to China. As she flies over the flat, brown plains, Hattie wonders if she should have let her family know she is coming, but she did not know how to tell them her reason for coming. After she lands, Hattie tries to call her uncle and then her cousin, but no one answers.
An "athletic Asian man with porcupine hair" introduces himself to Hattie; his name is Lennie Dow and he is the bone picker, appropriately dressed all in black. He is young but comes from generations of bone pickers, people who "pick the bones out of any flesh that might be left" on interred bodies.
Hattie's parents were...
(The entire section is 508 words.)
Hattie III: The Pride of Riverlake (Pages 338-350)
Sarun's gang friends come to visit. The seven boys, although dressed and tattooed like gang members, are surprisingly shy and respectful. Hattie knows they are drug dealers and thieves who are unflinchingly violent when necessary; however, here they joke and talk with Sarun.
Sophy visits Hattie the next day and is impressed with the tricks Hattie has taught Annie, probably the last dog Hattie will ever train. Finally Sophy asks Hattie how to file a child abuse complaint against her father for nearly killing Sarun. Chhung wants to turn himself in, saying he is "an animal who should be in a cage." Mum is afraid Chhung will kill himself, and even Sarun thinks it might make his father feel better. Sophy vows to kill...
(The entire section is 501 words.)
Hattie III: The Pride of Riverlake (Pages 351-362)
Hattie's walking group, each with a homemade food offering, visit the Chhungs. As they stand in the driveway, "an enormous piece of machinery" makes its way down the driveway. It is Hatch driving an excavator. The bucket slams (unintentionally) to the ground twice before Hatch jumps down and tells Chhung he is there to help him excavate his ditch. It takes Chhung a few minutes to recover from the shock and surprise, but he has an exchange with Hatch which brings Chhung back to life. Everyone cheers.
"The whole town is giddy." Chhung still needs help, and the people of Riverlake prepare to get Chhung into substance abuse and anger management classes. Though Riverlake has never had a mayor, there is talk of...
(The entire section is 509 words.)
Hattie III: The Pride of Riverlake (Pages 363-375)
Everett gave his life to Ginny; Hatch gave his life to science. Everett knew Hatch could not love with abandon because he spent his life weighing and considering. Hatch and Hattie "were as good a match" as Everett and Ginny, but they wasted all those years.
Hatch finally asks Hattie why she left research. She tries to postpone the conversation, but Hatch is dissuaded. Hattie finally says she left because the laboratory was an arena, not a home. Though she loved the laboratory, it would never love her back, so she left. To Hatch, the laboratory is like a lake used for swimming, to be left behind when one is finished swimming. Hatch was also part of Hattie's decision to leave.
Hatch wonders if teaching...
(The entire section is 506 words.)
Hattie III: The Pride of Riverlake (Pages 376-386)
This is only the second community event the Chhungs have attended, but they seem to have always been part of things. Chhung "looks dazed," as if he has "been reborn." Hattie agrees and explains to her friends that Chhung has always believed he was reborn into his brother's life.
Mum shares something she baked: baguettes stuffed with chocolate inside, made in the roaster Sophy borrowed. Everyone loves the treat, and Mum is encouraged to do more baking for the town.
Only Hattie knows that the Chhungs have been considering moving because Mum misses the temple and holidays and they all miss the people and the foods of their culture. And Sophy says she does not think she could ever get used to the cold...
(The entire section is 507 words.)


text:
The Sabres needed the game to stay in the hunt for an eastern Conference playoff spot.
The Canadiens sank deeper into last place.
Eight games to go.
But it will seem like more.
Down 3-0, the Canadiens pulled Carey Price with 3:40 to go.
And Erik Cole promptly took a goaler interference penalty.
It's been that kind of season.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Spare speakers system on each side of digital screen at Ibom Plaza, Uyo City, capital of Akwa IBM State. There are four sets of these powerful speaker system, two on each side.
Create Your Own Happiness
The personal Diary
The Dopest Fiction and Me. By: Me
Lifestyle Blogger. EzineArticles Expert Author
When writing comes with emotions!!!
Lakukanlah sesuatu dengan keyakinan 😎
I'm listening you.
because everything that can't be said is meant to be written
Hello bloggers! How are you all doing? I hope everything is fine! Please do visit my blog.Comment,like,share anything you want.
मिट्टी का तन, मस्ती का मन,क्षण भर जीवन मेरा परिचय
She feels deeply and writing is her escape.
Good Life or Bad Life Is Your Choice
~ poems,Novels and life events..
Novas ideias, entretenimento, novos negócios, família e uma pitada de humor.
Uncovering History
" Your body is your temple"
Make India Read Again
it's all about having a better style of living ♥
tha blogs is about styles beauty health true story's love poetry many more )): my blog my own thoughts) monakhaan.com
Kişisel Blogger
Number one for a reason
Getting it Right with Nelson
As pretty as we are
Life, love and other adventures in Second Life
"Amidst the cloudy ray that's left of our sight, we must equally, learn to write right the set of lies called history in one message; God made us all."-Alpha E. Y.
Nurse tweets
Wanderers in the world
Edebiyatı tüccarlardan alıp,halka vereceğiz.
Blog Criado Para Demonstrar Tudo e Um Pouco Mais
Work for SFI Affiliate Centre and Buy or Sell at TripleClicks.com


text:
Really sweet!
Welcome to the Quilting Board!
Really sweet!
Oh it is so cute. Sounds like a fun group & game.
Very cute. Show us the one you get also.
Oh dear what a great potholder! I love the amount quilting you used on it too. I hate those ones that fall apart in the wash the fist time cleaning them.
"Take your needle, my child, and work at your pattern ... It will come out a rose by and by. Life is like that ...one stitch at a time, taken patiently."
*Oliver Wendell Holms
The one wh gets that teapot is sure to love it.
Great job!
How fun. And you've got great imagination.
Life is a coin, You can spend it anyway you wish,
But you can only spend it once!
I love the use of the fabric for the teapot! That is great. You did a marvelous job and it look like a lot of fun too. Bridget says it's a beauty and she loves it very much.
That's so cute and the fabric is perfect for the pot!
Four things you can't recover: The stone.....after the throw. The word......after its said. The occasion.....after its missed. The time......after its gone
Beautiful pot holder. I hope you get a really good one.
Another Phyllis
This life is the only one you get - enjoy it before you lose it.


text:
Cold Steel is famous for raising the bar in the knife industry and the Cold Steel Tanto Point Recon 1 Folding Knife is setting a standard that's hard to beat. Why? Because they are as tough as nails and will cut like a chain saw! Every facet of their construction has been over engineered to make them as strong, durable and effective as humanly possible. The blades are made out of AUS 8A stainless steel that's been vacuum heat treated and sub zero quenched, and the handles feature G-10 laminate scales, massively reinforced by heat treated steel liners and five locking bolts. To compliment their super tough blades and handles, they each feature the revolutionary Ultra Lock, which practically precludes lock failure.
To compliment their tactical mission, each blade is given a tough black Teflon finish. Testing has shown this coating or finish offers three major advantages for use on blades. The first is; it is highly resistant to scratches and abrasions while keeping rust at bay. The second is; it eliminates glare and light reflections which may give its user away. The third is; it's a superior lubricant, which causes the blade to slip through even tough material with markedly less friction. This means you can cut deeper and far longer than with a non-Teflon coated blade.
To make the Recon 1 as easy to carry as possible, each knife is equipped with a small, extra strong pocket clip. This clip is completely ambidextrous so lefties take note. What's more, its diminutive size doesn't abrade and irritate the palm under protracted use like a larger clip would.
Mack's Prairie Wings is not responsible for typographical errors in pricing or product specification inaccuracies in our web site. Prices are subject to change without notice.
Copyright © 2017 - Mack's Sport Shop LLLP - All rights reserved. Site Developed and Maintained by Ability Commerce
Copyright © 2004-2017 - Mack's Prairie Wings, Inc. - All rights reserved. Site Developed and Maintained by Ability Commerce


text:
Louisiana-Lafayette beat McNeese State 11-9 Tuesday night, handing the Cowboys their 10th loss in 12 games. The loss came despite one of McNeese's best offensive showings of the season with 19 hits and a season-high five doubles. (Rick Hickman / American Press)
Last Modified: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 10:59 PM
By Alex Hickey / American Press
Louisiana-Lafayette beat McNeese State 11-9 Tuesday night at Cowboy Diamond, handing the Cowboys their 10th loss in 12 games.
The loss came despite one of McNeese's best offensive showings of the season with 19 hits and a season-high five doubles.
The Cowboys (19-19) led 4-0 after three innings, but saw all of that wiped out in a seven-run sixth inning that was keyed by two ULL homers, including a grand slam by leadoff man Dex Kjerstad on an 0-2 pitch by reliever Jacob Williams.
"That one inning killed us," said McNeese coach Terry Burrows. "Especially that one-handed grand slam. That was pretty weird."
Both home runs were surrendered by Williams (1-1), who came in trying to protect a 5-2 lead for starter Jason Gibson with runners on first and second and nobody out in the sixth.
The Ragin' Cajuns (28-13) sent 10 men to the batter's box in the inning. Seth Harrison added a two-run shot to empty the bases three spots after Kjerstad's slam.
"(Williams) was in a situation to be successful, but he just had a couple 0-2 pitches that he didn't execute," Burrows said.
The Cowboys had multiple chances to bounce back, but were stuck grabbing at a carrot that kept being pulled out of reach.
The final opportunity came in the bottom of the ninth, when Lucas Quary grounded out to short to end the game with runners at second and third.
Quary started the game in right field and pitched in the ninth.
"If we could have had anybody up in that situation at this time, it would have been Quary," Burrows said. "He's swinging the bat. In batting practice he's been doing well. He has a chance to hit the ball a long way. We were in the right situation, we just didn't get the hit."
The Cajuns bullpen escaped a couple other late-inning situations with runners in scoring position.
The Cowboys loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the sixth, but Ben Carter got Sam Peterson to ground into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning.
Designated hitter Reed Gordy had a chance to drive home the tying run in the seventh, but lined directly to ULL shortstop Blake Trahan to end the inning.
Gordy and Peterson were among the changes Burrows made to the lineup to try and snap the Cowboys out of their slump. Gordy went 3-for-5 with two RBIs and Peterson was 1-for-3 in his first start at third base.
"The guys who came in and played got some hits," Burrows said. "We swung the bat well."
ULL used five pitchers and McNeese used four in a game that lasted 3 hours, 36 minutes. Cord Cockrell (4-2) picked up the win for the Cajuns, and Matt Hicks went the final two innings for his 10th save.


text:
Home › Forums › General Forums › Winter Hiking › Winter PCT
Oct 30, 2007 at 9:43 am #1225628
jonathan hauptmanMember
@6hauptman6Locale: A white padded room in crazy town.
I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to thru-hike the PCT in winter? Is it even feasable? If possible, I wonder how fast it could be completed? This is just something that popped into my head about a week ago. I can not seem to get it off my mind.Oct 30, 2007 at 3:14 pm #1407211
Ken HelwigBPL Member
@kennyhel77Locale: Scotts Valley CA via San Jose, CA
Would be possible, but the hard part would be resupply and time needed. Dangers would include route finding, avalanche skills and the weather. Dunno if anyone has attempted it or not. I am referring to the Sierra's by the way.Oct 30, 2007 at 9:50 pm #1407259
Whit KincaidMember
It would take a seriously motivated individual to pull that slog off. If someone has actually done that already, I doubt he enjoyed it very much.
There are serious logistical questions that would need a lot of study to come up with realistic answers.
Much of the trail would be quite remote in the winter time. Getting from and to the trail after re-supply would be keenly difficult if you didn't have coordinated vehicular transport. In fact a good number of the resupply points commonly used would be unavailable in winter time.
In a medium or heavy snow year the upper elevations (7000'+ and often lower)all along the entire trail receive significant precipitation in the form of snow and rain.
You would be engaged in an activity much closer to alpineism than backpacking. You would often encounter vast areas of very deep snow.In fact, up high deep snow would be your constant companion.
Though the PCT has fairly gentle grades compared to many other trails, a partner for protection would be required often from the Sierras to the Canadian border.
It would be quite dangerous even with protection.
For instance let's talk about the areas of trail circumnavigating Murray Canyon in the section starting at Palms to Pines Hwy leading up to the saddle and then decending down to Idyllwyld via the Devil Slide trail.
About 38 miles including the walk into town. A lot of elevation gain. More to the point, 20 miles or so into the hike the trail becomes a roughly 36" wide stone shelf that was blasted out of the side of the cliffs in the 1930s. The stone work (or perhaps originally stonebackfilling?)providing the foundation of the trail, often in excess of twenty vertical
feet, is quite impressive.
Assuming winter conditions, this few miles of trail can be covered in a layer of thick slick ice. It would be really slow going, considering that if you go over the edge, the fall is hundreds of vertical feet.
And I'm talking sunny southern California here! 90 miles due east of downtown Los Angelos. The sierra, Oregon, and Washington would be much more difficult. The supply situation in Oregon alone would be the challenge of a life time.
You can't carry enough calories and hike fast enough to make it work. Simple as that.
Oh, did I mention the trail will be entirely invisible for sometimes days?Oct 31, 2007 at 6:40 am #1407276
John S.BPL Member
Bet Skurka wouldn't even attempt that one.Oct 31, 2007 at 6:52 am #1407277
Doug JohnsonBPL Member
@djohnsonLocale: Washington State
I've snowshoed small parts of the PCT in winter here in Washington. Here's how I did it:
snowmobiled 25 miles to the trailhead
Used a GPS to go cross country on 11 feet of snow
Found Deep Lake and walked the saddle by Cathedral Rock (Alpine Lakes Wilderness)
It was a logistical issue but was also one of the most amazing wilderness experiences I've ever had. I've often considered doing a cross-country trip on the PCT and winter, but I've never considered an thru-hike. I think it would be pretty dangerous, considering the isolation and avalanche risk- at least here in Washington. But what a cool idea to ponder!
Oct 31, 2007 at 11:59 am #1407330
Ryan FaulknerBPL Member
I have some big plans for the future, along the lines of one of skurkas treks.. the winter will definately be the biggest issue to consider.. a winter PCT hike would be dareing, but I think possible, and if someone were to complete it, It would make me alot more confident and comfortable with long distance hiking in the winter months..
If I were to attempt some of the western mountain ranges in the winter, I would be sure to have an experienced partner along with me, when during the rest of the year, I may prefer to hike alone.
also, I would not skimp as much on navigational and emergency gear. I would definatly have a GPS, personal locater becon, and small fire starting. survival kit with me.
Probably would not be the funnest thru-hike ever, but im sure record attempt hikes arent either… a trek like this would not exactly be for the same reasons as a typical thru-hike, and noone would expect it to be anything like a normal thru-hike. Why do some of us have the dreams and desires we do? I do not know, they are far from rational.. but I can definately relate.
"whatever the mind can conceive and beleive, It can acheive"Oct 31, 2007 at 11:46 pm #1407400
Richard GlessBPL Member
@rglessLocale: San Francisco Bay Area
The Muir Trail in California has been done in winter. There was one writeup in Summit Magazine about a '70s trip, but it was a very low snow year. It has been done in more normal snow years, but I gather it's quite a challenging ski mountaineering experience and there's no guarantee of success.Nov 1, 2007 at 10:04 am #1407447
Dirk RabdauMember
@dirk9827Locale: Pacific Northwest
Wow! Great photos Doug. I've hiked that area several times during the summer but in the winter, it looks wonderful. That's quite the trek on snowshoes!
I would completely agree with your sentiments regarding Washington in the winter….Although my experience is more limited, there are substantial number of high ridges on the PCT that are quite exposed and subject to deep snow.
I think Washington would be made very difficult by the nature of winter storm damage that hasn't been cleared out yet. I know Scott Williamson, PCT yo-yo hiker, undertook a southbound attempt this year with his new bride, and from what I've read, the falldown up here in Washington was disheartening. It took them days to navigate a path that during a normal year would take hours.
Also, I would imagine the Kendall Katwalk would at the very least require an ice axe to navigate. Given the severe avalanche danger in this area, it is very risky given the drop-off on the other side. Now, that is completely from my perspective as a person with very little mountaineering experience. Perhaps someone with mountaineering chops would comment on the general risk profile in Washington along the PCT.
During an average snow year in Washington, the area around Glacier Peak would also be pretty difficult. The Goat Rocks section is also highly exposed in sections, but on a good day, you might find yourself sharing the trail with some of the more adventurous back country skiers.
Of course, if you left say, on the first day of winter from Campo and headed to Washington, a person probably wouldn't get to Washington until mid-spring or late spring at the earliest! Then the problem might not be so much snow but the problems of snow and freezing rain.
I don't want to throw cold water on anyone's dreams or attempts. I don't know if it could be done or not, but I do know it would take a very long time.
I am curious, would it make more sense to do a southbound hike in the winter?Nov 1, 2007 at 11:10 am #1407455
Thomas KnightonMember
@tomcat1066Locale: Southwest GA
>Bet Skurka wouldn't even attempt that one.
I'd attempt it.
Of course, I've never been known for my sound decision making skills…just meeting a couple of my ex girlfriends would make that obvious :D
TomNov 1, 2007 at 4:29 pm #1407493
I could envision a couple of really gifted, determined backcountry skier/mountaineer types doing it if they had people bring resupply stuff into them at predetermined points along the route, sort of like a supported JMT attempt. AND, if everything went just right and the mountain gods woke up on the right side of the bed for about 120 or so days in a row. I think it would require two people because there would likely be places where a belay and protection would be involved(pickets, flukes, ice screws, etc), unless it were to be a suicide mission. Think Forrester Pass, Kendall Catwalk for openers. Still, the odds would be long. All it would take would be a heavy snowstorm to create avalanche conditions that would abort the effort or possibly doom our intrepid heroes to slow death by starvation/hypothermia if it occurred just as supplies ran out and their support team couldn't reach them. There lots of other unhappy endings as well. Still, I think this would be possible.
Snowshoeing would be too slow to pull it off in one winter, IMHO, but perhaps the above scenario could be used to section hike the PCT in winter over several seasons.Nov 1, 2007 at 5:04 pm #1407498
Doug JohnsonBPL Member
@djohnsonLocale: Washington State
I agree that ski mountaineering would be the ticket. But the snow up here can get extremely deep sometimes and the skis might slow you down in certain circumstances.
From my mountaineering background, Kendall Catwalk would make me much less nervous than many of the PCT traverses under serious avalanche chutes. That's the dodgy part. Routefinding would be tough too.
Still, I'm in. At least for part! It's been a dream of mine to do a short thru on the PCT in Washington in mid-winter for years. Stevens to Snoqualmie in mid January? Maybe it would be insane but I'd love to at least think about it!!!
Further, I can provide snowmobile support from the Lake Cle Elum / Hyas Lake side. Anybody up for a 3 day teaser this winter? Enough talk, let's make an adventure!!!Nov 2, 2007 at 5:00 pm #1407597
No question that avalanches would be the number one hazard in our hypothetical endeavor. Probably a show stopper in fact. But still, it's fun to contemplate. An iced over Kendall Catwalk would be not a problem with the right equipment-just an ice axe and crampons should do, but without them it, too, could be a serious problem-major detour at the least. Actually, I was using the Catwalk as an example; there are probably enough such potential problems along the way to string the trip out into early spring, but you wouldn't really know for sure until you encountered them. For navigation, I think I would use a GPS device with a VERY large number of waypoints stored in advance. Things just don't look the same under 10+ feet of snow.Nov 2, 2007 at 5:22 pm #1407602
P. P.Member
@toesnorthLocale: PNW
We have a Washington section PCT trip in the works (though not in winter….hmmm, so far) and were told that the trail has actually been revised??? The most recent data books I have are from 2003. Should I be looking for an update?Nov 2, 2007 at 5:36 pm #1407604
The Forest Service had to reroute sections of the trail, particularly in the section from Rainy Pass to Stevens Pass due to heavy storm damage last winter. A good bet would be to check the their website or, more personally, give the Darrington Ranger Station a call. They're usually a pretty good source and nice folks to boot. I bagged a section hike on that portion of the PCT this summer when a friend told me about some of the detours; seemed like too much hassle at the time. Washington Trails Association is another good source. I was just looking at a report they put out about damage to the Suiattle River Rd, which is in that area. The projected repair time frame for the road is pretty general-2008/2009, and that's just for a couple of washouts. Lord only knows when they'll get around to cleaning up the PCT. A better bet would be the section from Stevens Pass to Snoqualmie Pass. It was in good shape in 2006 when I did it, and I haven't heard anything to the contrary since. Check to be sure, though. Good luck.Nov 6, 2007 at 10:15 am #1408028
Sarah KirkconnellBPL Member
@sarbarLocale: In the shadow of Mt. Rainier
P.P., the revisions are past Stevens Pass from the storm damage in 2003. If you are doing anything from Columbia River to Stevens, don't worry.
Hoosierdaddy and I did Chinook Pass to White Pass about a month ago in the first snow storm. A lot of fun, very cold though. We didn't see anyone till the last 5 or 6 miles. The snow was easy till then, but after that..the horses the hunters we passed had just chewed it up. That made our last couple miles sucky. We slid all over, falling into holes due to the horses hoofs pulling up chunks of snow.
I'd love to do more of the PCT in the snow….but, and a big but, no thanks on Kendall Katwalk in the snow. It isn't the Katwalk that bothers me, but rather the long traverse after it, heading North. That traverse goes on for miles. And it is steep, I am figuring it is massive avy cute in winter? Coming up to Parks Lakes from the East side maybe instead?
We did Stevens to Snoqualmie in 2006, Mt. Hood to the Columbia River this summer. We may try to do Lava Beds to the Columbia River this month, in the early snow.Nov 6, 2007 at 10:19 am #1408030
Sarah KirkconnellBPL Member
@sarbarLocale: In the shadow of Mt. Rainier
I put all my TR's together for the PCT. I am still working on it, but for now about 2/3rds of it is done.Nov 21, 2007 at 7:08 pm #1409848
Dylan TaylorMember
@nevadasLocale: California Coast
suffice to say that any winter backcountry in the sierras and cascades requires a sober evaluation of your skills and abilities. i've done portions of the PCT in winter in the sierras and the oregon cascades, around the three sisters area, on cross country skis.
as noted above, i cant imagine doing something like the north side of forrester pass in the dead of winter. you would need the perfect combo of weather, snow quality, etc. to do it safely. what about near whitney, at the trail crest? whoo hoo.
and, it certainly wouldnt be an ultralight endeavour.
heres a shot from last winter on a two nighter out to glacier point. too bad my buddy couldnt focus my camera with his gloves on…
anyway… hey i will do a 3 day winter trip up in WA. sign me up and i'll fly up. i would love to check that area in the winter with someone who knows the area. my sis lives in ballard… she'd probably be in too.Nov 30, 2007 at 4:00 pm #1410856
Brian LewisMember
@brianleLocale: Pacific NW
I think a person would end up being somewhat — no, make that quite — "creative" in the actual route they followed. Relative to where the literal PCT lies. And apart from just following roads or walking routes that others have been walking (leaving tracks), I think this would indeed be very very challenging.
I walked section J (includes the Kendall Katwalk) this summer, and areas like the Katwalk wouldn't be my biggest, or at least my only concern. If you've ever tried to follow a summertime trail in the winter, one that no one else has been walking on, you'll know that there are real challenges to not being able to see the trail.
Walking in a forest, at times it's pretty obvious where the path goes. But very often it's not at all obvious, and at the point where I find that the trees and brush are getting denser all about me, and it's difficult to proceed, I can try to bust through and continue to whatever looks to be the most open ahead, or I can backtrack — but really I'm just bushwhacking more or less in the vicinity of something that's a clear and easy trail in the summer.
The snow covers brush and sometimes makes it easy to travel places and take shortcuts you wouldn't take in summer, but that's far from universal, and sometimes in the forest the snow falls on deadfall or brush that you can sink into or get tangled in … it can be exhausting sometimes just travelling a mile or two in such conditions.
This, btw, could make it challenging to pull a sled/pulk along a summertime-trail.
I suggest picking some forested as well as some exposed (vertical) sections of trail and doing a multi-day winter trip "on the PCT" before committing to anything more aggressive. Test to see what kind of pace can be reasonably sustained. See how easy it is to navigate in extensive forest (you might want spare lithium batteries for your GPS, and if for nothing else but safety I do recommend you bring one, ideally one with the SiRF Star III chipset …).
Brian LewisDec 1, 2007 at 9:13 pm #1410977
Eric BlumensaadtBPL Member
@danepackerLocale: Mojave Desert
Those who feeel avalanche would be the biggest danger are absolutly correct. Any slopes between 32 and 48 degrees are the most avalanche prone.In my estimation you'd need a minimum of a party of four for avalanche safety (i.e.self rescue).
Next, the absolutly necessary avy evaluation and rescue equipment would add to your weight. Namely snow evaluation kit (one for the party), shovels, avy probes, avy transciever beacons, and the new packs with instantly inflatable avy bags such as SnowPulse or ABS (they reduce fatalities to almost zero). Also "nice" would be a PLB for rescue if necessary. (One for the party)
With heavier loads and more calories needed for cold weather you would have to do smaller sections for more frequent resupply than summer trips.
Of course if you get Nat'l Geo. to sponsor you you can always use air resupply drops and just stay on the trail. ;)
EricDec 8, 2007 at 10:29 am #1411778
Wayne KraftMember
I have been watching this thread and hoping to find time to add this post. Maybe I will be able to get it done this morning.
In the mid-1970's (the exact year eludes me) a group of four back country skiers led by Jerry Igo attempted to ski the Oregon PCT from Timberline Lodge in the north to Lake of the Woods in the south. As far as I know, the details of the trip remain unpublished. What I recount here is from memory of conversations with participants and Jerry's slide show presentation about the trip from 30 years ago, so please excuse me if I miss a detail or two.
The participants were Jerry (who was about 60 at the time and a trip leader and some-time wilderness skills instructor from the Portland, OR area), June Fleming (author of The Well Fed Backpacker and Staying Found: The Complete Map and Compass Handbook), Jerry's son and a young woman from back east whose names I have forgotten.
They began their trip from Timberline Lodge on about March 1. The theory was that most of the winter storms had passed and that the trip would be mostly spring type skiing conditions. I do not recall a great deal about their gear. They all four used Trak Bushwacker skis. These short, wide, metal-edged, fish-scale bottomed skis are no longer manufactured. I tried them out back then. They were a kind of compromise between skis and snowshoes.
The first week of the trip yielded anything but spring-like conditions as a series of cold fronts swept in from the Pacific dumping 5-7 feet of fresh snow in the mountains. Our intrepid trekkers survived this experience quite comfortably, but the going was quite slow. It was often necessary to take off packs, break trial, return for packs and so on.
The group had arranged for re-supply from a network of friends who would meet them at various points along the way. I was to be a member of their first resupply platoon, scheduled to meet with the group at a place called Pamelia Lake near Mt. Jefferson. Pamelia Lake is now a short detour off the official PCT, but I believe it was actually on the official PCT route (aka Oregon Skyline Trail} in those days.
After a few days of slogging through heavy snow, it became obvious to the Igo group that they would not make it to Pamelia Lake on schedule or anywhere close to it, so they bailed out down a power line cut and eventually made their way to Breitenbush Hotsprings (a resort — not at Breitenbush lake) and met up with the winter caretaker and his broken two-way radio. The group was concerned that when their resupply got to Pamelia Lake and they failed to arrive an unnecessary rescue effort would ensue, so after a short rest they made their way afoot down logging roads toward the town of Detroit. They were eventually picked up by a wildlife photographer in a 4wd vehicle and ferried into town.
Meanwhile, the resupply crew, of which I was a member, was slogging up a snow covered road toward the Pamelia Lake trailhead when we were surprised to hear the roar of a V8 behind us. When the noise caught up with us Jerry jumped out of the bed of the 4wd pickup and regaled us with tales of the group's crazy week in the deep snow, snagged his resupply bag and went back to Detroit for a warm, dry motel night. The resuppliers re-grouped, discussed and decided to continue on to Pamelia Lake to spend the night, drink some Schnapps and sing some songs as the snow turned to rain.
The Igo group determined that avalanche conditions north of Santiam pass through the Mt. Jefferson Wilderness were too severe to warrant a traverse at that time so they arranged transport to Santiam Pass and continued south from there, skipping a segment of the PCT.
Once again, winter reasserted itself and the group arrived at McKenzie Pass in driving wind and very low temperatures. They were able to shelter themselves fairly well by erecting a tent inside the observatory there (a kind of lava rock hut with holes in the walls for viewing surrounding peaks); however, their stoves (Svea wick-type as I recall) were not adequate for the task of melting snow and rehydration became a problem. Once again, a long bail out to the town of Sisters ensued.
After an interlude in Sisters the group returned to McKenzie Pass and completed their trek to Lake of the Woods as conditions in the high country steadily improved. I recall seeing slides of group members skiing in shorts and T-shirts by the end of this trip.
I have pretty much lost touch with these characters over the years. Jerry Igo, who must be 90 by now, was alive and kicking as of a year or so ago residing in the Columbia River Gorge and regaling tourists aboard a river boat with tales of the woods, some of them probably even true. June Fleming is well last I heard and must be at least 39 by now ;-). Of the others I have no news.
I hope this account is useful to anyone planning an extended winter trip on the PCT and interesting, at least, to the rest of you who retain some portion of your sanity.Dec 8, 2007 at 11:53 am #1411792
Ron MoakMember
In the late '70s after a successful thru-hike of the AT I decided to apply my newfound hiking expertise to the PCT. Not wanting to wait until summer I decided to hike between Santiam Pass and Mt. Hood over Spring Break. Having never hiked in the western mountains, nothing in my logic seemed amiss. So on a warm sunny spring morning I started hiking.
Fortunately it was a relatively low snow year as the first mile of the PCT was snow free. While I had come prepared for some snow with my newly acquired ice axe and glacier goggles, I had expected patchy snow. Within a mile I left bare earth behind and wouldn't see it for several more days. Entering the large bowels that flank Three Finger Jack, all signs of the trail disappeared beneath the snow.
Having never done map and compass or cross country hiking, as it's not needed much on East Coast trails, I plunged ahead confident I could follow the map. Cresting the second pass, I found a steep slope with no sign of trail. Based on the maps I had a good idea where the trail entered the woods several hundred feet below. With the trail and switchbacks buried under feet of snow, there was no clear path to get there.
Sitting on my butt, pushing my pack in front of me, I made my first glissade with my ice axe to a small band of trees. There I found a spot large enough to make camp and cook dinner. That night I fell asleep to the sound of huge boulders crashing down off Three Finger Jake as the days snow melt refroze and released them from their perch.
The next day I managed to find the trail primarily because of the occasional blaze carved into the trunk and the wide path formed as the trail traversed thick timber. All told I managed about 6 miles of hiking that day. The late winter snow was well consolidated so actual walking was not difficult. Most of the time was spent making sure I wasn't hiking off into oblivion.
Halfway through the third day, I realized at my pace I'd be out of food long before making it to Mt. Hood. So I needed to find an out. In those days the PCT maps were ok but missing a lot of detail needed to bail off into the unknown. I did have a Forest Service map with even less detail. Between the two maps, I managed to piece out a cross country route down a valley that would lead me to Pamelia Lake. From there I could take a trail out to the trail head and a hike of several miles out to the highway.
Fortunately the hike out was pretty much uneventful. By the time I got down to the lake, I was back on dry ground and found a good camp for the night. On the final day a few miles of hiking and a half dozen hitch hikes later I arrived at my destination in Portland.
I have to admit I was extremely lucky. The weather sunny and clear the entire time. Which I've learned over the last 30 years is unusual for Oregon at that time of the year. Had I encountered any significant snowfall, I'm sure my bones would laying under some moss covered tree deep in the Oregon Cascades.
You gotta love youth!
RonDec 12, 2007 at 8:08 pm #1412328
Wayne KraftMember
Ron, I'm going to guess that your trip was in the spring of 78. That was a remarkably dry winter with little snow. Ordinarily in late winter Pamelia Lake is covered in a deep layer of snow that doesn't disappear until well after spring break. However, in February of 78 I hiked into Pamelia Lake with my wife and another couple and there was almost no snow at all. The trail and camp spots were all bare ground. The lake was frozen and we did some ice fishing with a hook and line (no pole). Ordinarily this would be difficult or impossible because of the need to burrow through a few feet of snow to get to the ice layer. If your abortive hike was, indeed, in 1978 you had much less snow than one would ordinarily encounter along that route.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.


text:
Civil Rights Monitor
The CIVIL RIGHTS MONITOR is a quarterly publication that reports on civil rights issues pending before the three branches of government. The Monitor also provides a historical context within which to assess current civil rights issues. Back issues of the Monitor are available through this site. Browse or search the archives


text:
Brian Hayes
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. You've heard that before. It is a maxim so often repeated, and so often confirmed by experience, that it begins to sound like a law of nature, as familiar and irresistible as gravity. And indeed perhaps there is some physical or mathematical rule governing the distribution of wealth in the world. No such general principle is going explain the specifics of who gets rich and poor, but it might illuminate the overall statistics.
This idea goes back at least a century to the work of the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who tried to show that the income distribution in all cultures and countries has the same mathematical form. In recent years the topic has been taken up with renewed enthusiasm by a small band of "econophysicists," who apply principles of statistical mechanics to questions in economic theory. The essence of their approach is to study an economy as if it were a many-body physical system such as a gas. Just as random collisions between gas molecules give rise to macroscopic properties such as temperature and pressure, random encounters between individuals in an economic system might determine large-scale phenomena such as the distribution of wealth.
Some of the computational models for exploring these issues are remarkably easy to build and run. It takes just a few minutes' effort and a few lines of code. On the other hand, it's also remarkably easy to make subtle mistakes of implementation, as I'll have occasion to mention below. And the big challenge is not building the models but interpreting the results—deciding which kinds of random encounters might represent events in a real economy.
The economy being simulated in these models is a rather special one, based on pure, free-market trading. The exchange of assets is all that ever happens here; there is no production of new wealth, and no consumption either. Leaving out so much of the real economy is an obvious weakness, but there is a compensating advantage: What remains is a closed system. In the model, wealth is a conserved quantity, like energy or momentum. Because the total amount of wealth never changes, one person can get richer only if another grows poorer.
I find it helpful to think of this miniature economy in terms of a yard sale, where all the participants put their goods out on the lawn Saturday morning, then stroll up and down the street making trades with their neighbors. At the end of the day, after all transactions are completed, an auditor reviews everyone's inventory and calculates their new net worth.
Many economic models assume that all transactions occur at precisely the right price. Indeed, prices are correct by definition in such models: Whatever price is agreed to by a willing seller and a willing buyer is the value assigned to an asset. Given such perfect pricing, nothing interesting could ever happen in the yard-sale economy. I might trade my old toaster for your broken VCR, but if we negotiate the terms of the deal correctly, my net worth will not change in the slightest, and neither will yours.
In practice, the assumption of perfect pricing seems a little unrealistic. Some buyers are more discerning than others, and some sellers are more persuasive. There are bargains to be had, and there are bad deals—concepts that could hardly exist if we did not agree that merchandise has a true and proper value, which does not always correspond exactly to the price paid.
Even slight departures from perfect pricing bring a new dynamic to the yard-sale model. If I buy your rusty wheelbarrow and pay more than it's worth, I am left slightly poorer after the transaction, and you are a little richer. Conversely, if I pay less than fair value, I gain a little, and you lose. In either case there has been a transfer of wealth, typically a small fraction of the price paid. These transfers are where the action is in the modeled economy; as a matter of fact, the model can ignore the transaction itself—there's no need to talk about toasters and wheelbarrows—and simply consider the net transfer of wealth.
The question is: What happens when this process is repeated many times? If some of the traders are shrewder than others, you would certainly expect them to do well in the long run; likewise the perennial suckers are going to lose their shirts. But suppose that everyone is equally skillful, so that who wins and who loses is purely a matter of chance. The amount of gain and loss is also determined at random—but it's always less than the total wealth of the poorer agent, so that traders never risk losing more than they own.
Before reading on, you might try to predict what will happen in such an economy. If everyone starts out with the same bankroll, how will the assets be distributed after many random exchanges? Will the levels of wealth remain uniform? Perhaps the system will evolve toward a Gaussian distribution, with most people having a middling amount of money, while a few are very poor and a few are rich?
Here is the answer given by the computer experiment: If trading continues long enough, essentially all the wealth winds up in the hands of one person. The yard-sale economy, as formulated in this model, is a winner-take-all lottery. The traders might just as well put all their goods in one big pile, and then roll the dice to decide who keeps it all. (Strictly speaking, one trader gets all the goods only if wealth is quantized—if there is some smallest unit of value below which one's worth falls to zero. If wealth can be subdivided indefinitely, the winner's share comes arbitrarily close to 100 percent but never quite gets there.)
This condensation of all property in the hands of one individual is an economic catastrophe—something like the formation of a black hole in astrophysics. It's obviously bad news for the majority of the people, who are left penniless. But even if you happen to be the big winner, your victory may prove hollow. Although you have all the riches in the world, you can't buy a thing, because no one else has goods to sell. And you can't sell anything either, because no one has money to buy with. The whole economy is frozen.
I first began experimenting with the yard-sale simulation after reading an article, "Wealth distributions in asset exchange models," by Slava Ispolatov, Paul L. Krapivsky and Sidney Redner of Boston University. The computer models described there seemed both intriguing and easy to re-create, and so I wrote a quick-and-dirty program to play with some of them. I was perplexed when my results were quite different from those reported in the article. A second look revealed that I had misread a key equation, so that my model differed from theirs in a small but crucial way. Later I found a paper by Anirban Chakraborti of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics in India that describes essentially the same model I had accidentally created.
At least two other groups of physicists have recently published work on related themes. In France, Jean-Philippe Bouchaud of the Centre d'etudes de Saclay and Marc Mézard of the Ecole normale supérieure have described "wealth condensation" in a somewhat different model. And Adrian Dragulescu and Victor M. Yakovenko of the University of Maryland have written on "the statistical mechanics of money."
A source of ideas for most of these models is the analogy between market economics and the kinetic theory of gases. The molecules of a gas are continually colliding with one another and exchanging energy, in much the way that randomly chosen buyers and sellers in an economic model exchange sums of money. Yet gases do not follow the evolutionary path of the yard-sale economy. An economic collapse, where one person sucks in all the money, corresponds to a gas where one molecule has all the kinetic energy, and the rest are standing still. Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
Where the yard-sale model departs from the kinetic theory of gases is in the details of the exchange of wealth or energy. When two gas molecules collide, they can reapportion their energy in any way that leaves the total unchanged. If the molecules have energies a and b just before they collide, afterward they can have any combination of energies that add up to a+b. Translating this energy-redistribution process into financial terms yields a market in which the parties to a transaction combine their wealth and then randomly divide the total. A simulated economy based on this rule does not collapse the way the yard-sale model does; wealth remains spread throughout the population, although not uniformly so. The distribution follows an exponential curve: The number of people with wealth w is proportional to e–w/T, where T is the temperature. (In the economic context, Dragulescu and Yakovenko identify the temperature with the average amount of money available to the participants.)
An exponential distribution crowds most of the people into the lower economic strata, but compared with the lopsided outcome of the yard-sale model, the degree of inequity is fairly mild. At least it's not an all-or-nothing economy. Furthermore, although the shape of the distribution is stable, individuals do not remain stationary within it: There are many rags-to-riches-to-rags stories in such a society. The gap between rich and poor seems less unfair if people have a reasonable chance of moving between these categories.
An exponential distribution of wealth is clearly preferable to a winner-take-all outcome, and an economic model based on the kinetic theory of gases may also have a certain aesthetic appeal—at least to physicists. Nevertheless, the interpretation of the model is problematic. There is no obvious reason to expect economic agents to act like colliding molecules, and indeed the random repartitioning of kinetic energy is a fairly strange template for mercantile transactions. Applied in the yard-sale context, it suggests that when Bill Gates comes to browse among my lawn ornaments, he and I will pool all our assets and then randomly split up the pot.
One kind of financial transaction that might fit the pattern of the kinetic gas theory is marriage followed by divorce: This is a case where the parties do combine their holdings and later redivide them, although perhaps not quite randomly. In the corporate world, mergers and spin-offs might produce similar results.
The two models described so far lie at opposite poles along an axis defined by the amounts the trading parties put at risk. In the yard-sale model, the most that can be won or lost is the total wealth of the poorer partner. Since this model evolves toward a state where nearly everyone is impoverished, the typical transaction is extremely small. In the marriage-divorce model, in contrast, the entire fortunes of both partners are up for grabs.
Here is a recipe for a third model that occupies a middle ground. As in the yard-sale algorithm, pick two trading partners at random, and also randomly choose which of the partners is to lose (the donor) and which is to gain (the recipient). But instead of setting the size of the trade as a random fraction of the poorer player's wealth, make it a random fraction of the wealth of the donor. This rule still satisfies the commonsense constraint that you can never be made to pay more than you have. In each transaction you risk losing a random fraction of your own wealth, but you have a chance to gain a random fraction of the other person's fortune.
What kinds of real-world transactions might be described by this model? No doubt there are many plausible interpretations, but here is one that I find intriguing. A distinctive characteristic of the trading scheme is that the richer party always has more to lose and the poorer more to gain. Under these terms , any sensible person would try to do business only with wealthier partners, and no one would ever willingly choose to trade with a less-affluent person (assuming traders can gauge the wealth of their partners). Thus if trading between nonequals takes place at all, it must be by coercion or deception. In other words, what is being modeled here is theft and fraud.
When the theft-and-fraud model is allowed to run for many iterations, there is no economic collapse. The wealth distribution reaches an equilibrium on an exponential curve much like that seen in the marriage-and-divorce model. (I have no comment on this evidence that marriage and divorce have the same economic impact as larceny, nor will I speculate on why a world populated by bank robbers winds up with a fairer distribution of wealth than an economy of honest merchants.)
The recent publications on asset-exchange models describe many more variations. Dragulescu and Yakovenko mention a family of models that differ among themselves only in the rule for choosing an amount of money to transfer. In one case it is a small fixed quantity; in another it is a random fraction of the trading pair's average wealth; in a third model the amount is a random fraction of the average wealth of the entire population. To avoid putting traders into debt or bankruptcy, Dragulescu and Yakovenko apply the meta-rule that if the loser cannot pay, the entire transaction is canceled. In all these models the equilibrium distribution has an exponential form, and there is no economic collapse.
Ispolatov, Krapivsky and Redner look at greedy or exploitative rules, where the wealthier party always wins the exchange (perhaps reflecting a situation where the poor have less bargaining power). When the amount transferred is a random fraction of the poorer's agent's wealth (as in the yard-sale model), the result is economic collapse, with all funds gravitating toward one person. Of course it's hardly a surprise that systematic greed yields a harsh outcome. The surprise is that this obviously biased rule is no worse than the symmetrical rule in the yard-sale model.
Chakraborti looks at the effect of savings, allowing traders to hold back some of their capital from the market. In the yard-sale economy, savings cannot forestall a collapse. Reserving a fixed sum of money shifts the minimum wealth up from zero but does not alter the dynamics of the model. Saving a fixed fraction of wealth slows the collapse, but the winner still takes all in the end.
Several authors mention the effects of taxes, welfare and other explicit means of redistributing income. Imposing a tax on wealth prevents the implosion of the yard-sale economy (see Figure 4), but the effects of an income tax are not so clear. I experimented with income taxes by collecting a percentage of each transaction and redistributing the proceeds in equal shares to all traders. A low tax rate does not protect against collapse, but models with tax rates higher than about 15 percent do seem to survive indefinitely. If there is a sharp threshold between these regimes, I have been unable to identify it.
The various economic models discussed here differ in many details, but they can be classified in two broad families: those where the economy falls into a black hole, with one trader acquiring nearly everything of value, and those where the distribution of wealth reaches some stable equilibrium. What is the root of the difference?
Dragulescu and Yakovenko point out that transactions like those in the yard-sale model break time-reversal symmetry. For an example of a transaction rule that is reversible, consider the marriage-and-divorce model. Lumping together two fortunes and then splitting the sum is a process that works the same both forward and backward. If two traders report that they have $5 and $3 at one moment, and $7 and $1 at another moment, with a single transaction between these states, you can't tell which report is earlier and which is later. The lumping-and-splitting rule could apply in either direction. In the yard-sale model, on the other hand, the crucial step is taking the minimum of the two amounts, and reversing this operation cannot always restore the initial configuration. A transaction carried out under the yard-sale rule can go from the $5-and-$3 state to the $7-and-$1 state, but not the other way.
The irreversibility of the yard-sale rule acts as a kind of ratchet: Once the economy wanders into a state with an unbalanced distribution of wealth, it takes a long while to find its way out again. To see more clearly how the ratchet works, consider an even simpler model—an economy pared down to just two participants. Now the changing fortunes of either trader can be represented by a random walk along a line extending from zero to the total wealth available. All activity stops if the trader reaches either end of this line. A random walk that takes steps of uniform length is guaranteed to hit an end point sooner or later (a fate known as gambler's ruin). But this is not what is going on in the yard-sale model. There the steps are not of fixed size; because transactions are limited to the lesser of the trading partners' assets, the steps get smaller as the walk approaches either end point. If there is no smallest unit of currency, the random walk becomes a "Zeno walk," which spends most of its time in the neighborhood of an end point but never actually gets there.
To simplify the model still further, we can take a Zeno walk on the interval from 0 to 1, choosing to go left or right at random but letting the step size always be half the distance to the nearer end point (rather than a random fraction of this distance). If we begin at the point 11/42, the initial step size is 11/44. Suppose the first move is to the right, reaching the point 31/44. Now the step size is 11/48. If we turn back to the left, we do not return to our starting point but instead stop at 51/48. Where will we wind up after n steps? The probability distribution for this process has an intricate fractal structure, so there is no simple answer, but the likeliest landing places get steadily closer to the end points of the interval as n increases. This skewed probability distribution is the ratchetlike mechanism that drives the yard-sale model to states of extreme imbalance.
Models of the market economy may lead to some cute mathematics, but do they have the slightest connection with the price of peas in the real world? Can they predict the actual distribution of wealth observed in human societies?
As it happens, the shape of the actual distribution is uncertain and controversial. Most of the available data concern the distribution of income, which is not quite the same as the distribution of wealth. Pareto, 100 years ago, argued that the income distribution obeys a power law, so that the proportion of people whose income is at least x varies as x–a; Pareto believed that the exponent a is a universal constant with a value of about 2.5. Other economists have proposed a log-normal income curve, meaning that the distribution of the logarithm of income is Gaussian.
The model of Bouchaud and Mézard (which includes investment earnings as well as trade) yields a Pareto-like power law for the wealth distribution. Some of the "greedy" models of Ispolatov, Krapivsky and Redner also appear to fit a power-law curve. But the models drawn most directly from the kinetic theory of gases predict an exponential distribution of wealth. Dragulescu and Yakovenko argue that the middle part of the actual wealth distribution is indeed exponential, with a "Pareto tail" in the highest tax brackets. All the computational models are so crude, however, and the empirical measurements are so uncertain, that curve-fitting inspires little confidence.
Also unclear is whether events comparable to the collapse of the yard-sale model can happen in a real economy. Societies where a small elite controls almost all the property, while the rest of the people are destitute, are all too common. But does this situation result from a mathematical instability in the system of trade, or is there a simpler explanation, such as mere malice and greed? In any case, economic collapse seems never to go to completion in the real world, as it does in the models. Tycoons amass immense fortunes, but no ever one goes home with all the marbles. (Bill Gates holds much less than 1 percent of the world's wealth.)
Rather than trying to match the output of the models to economic statistics, it might be more fruitful to examine real-world economic practices for signs of the basic mechanisms that underlie the models. In particular, the fatal feature of the yard-sale model is the rule limiting the size of a transaction to the wealth of the lesser trading partner. The rule appears to be perfectly fair and symmetrical, and yet it has the effect that the farther you fall through the economic strata, the harder you'll find it to climb back up.
Is such a rule likely to be enforced in everyday commerce? Not always. It is clearly violated in many forms of gambling and speculation, where the whole point of the transaction is the hope of gaining more than you put at risk. Doubtless there are other exceptions as well. For the most part, though, those of us with less money are limited to smaller-scale buying and selling. And the lower the ceiling on your economic activity, the slower your progress up through the ranks. When I buy a new car, I have little chance—no matter how shrewdly I bargain—of significantly altering the balance of assets between me and General Motors.
Explaining the distribution of wealth among individuals is not the only possible application of the trading models. They might in fact be better suited to describing relations among companies, where a sudden consolidation of wealth could be interpreted as the emergence of a monopoly.
Beyond the corporate world, there is the question of whether the models might have anything to say about commerce among nations, and the ongoing debate over free markets, fair trade and a "level playing field." If some mechanism like that of the yard-sale model is truly at work, then markets might very well be free and fair, and the playing field perfectly level, and yet the outcome would almost surely be that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. You've heard that before.
© Brian Hayes
Community Guidelines: Disqus Comments
The Art and Science of Communicating Science
American Scientist Classics
Women in Science
Purchase a Back Issue
2014 Annual Index
The Age of Nuclear Weapons
25 Years in North Carolina
Of Possible Interest
Perspective: Taking the Long View on Sexism in Science
Computing Science: Computer Vision and Computer Hallucinations
Engineering: From Lowly Paper Clips to Towering Suspension Bridges
© 2016 Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society


text:
Rico Dardis murder trial - day two coverage
- THE trial of two men accused of murdering Rico Dardis continues at Winchester Crown Court today.
- Homeless Paul Mark Gerlach, 51, and 50-year-old Louis Borzoni, of Hamilton Road, Boscombe, have denied killing the 30-year-old on Monday, May 27 last year.
- The body of Mr Dardis, 30, of Hawkwood Mews, Boscombe, was discovered near groynes at Seaway Avenue, Friar's Cliff, Christchurch.
- His cause of death was recorded by a coroner as drowning, and he also suffered injuries caused by a boat propeller.
- Police were first alerted to the incident by members of the public, who said they had seen two men acting suspiciously in a boat.
Comments are closed on this article.


text:
|Over 12,000 traditional Chinese symbols/words are artistic and literary resource for any creative design, each single character containing traditional calligraphic strokes animation, audio pronunciation, combination to multi-character words, classic phrases, idioms, mottos, quotations, and simplified format currently used in China. It's a useful reference for Chinese learning, art design, web creation, and tattoo. Any question about the use of Chinese symbols? you are welcome to Contact with Andres Leo via: firstname.lastname@example.com
CLICK HERE to join as Andres' FB friends!
Ask Andres about Chinese tattoo, art design, or just make friends!
via media; Doctrine of Mean
left character: middle, center
Receive all the calligraphic styles for your art design for just $4.00!
Click Here to view the example page for all seven calligraphic styles, horizontal and vertical alignments, traditional and simplified Chinese symbols (16 clip-art files) will be emailed to you in 1-2 days.
Item number: VV38
related Chinese symbols:
Create your own Chinese Numbers and Dates
These 18 symbols are all you need to create Chinese numbers and dates!
English-Chinese Translation
Translated by professional writer Andres Leo. Reliable service, it's accurate, fluent, and fast...
read feedback from the clients
Words/Names/Poem Translation
for your Tattoo and Art Design.
CLICK HERE to submit your request!


text:
Hello All,
It is probably only fair that I contribute on occasion to our blog. Since I am certainly not a qualified expert in the field of survival and at times in common sense, it is probably best for me to teach our readers what not to do. I'll leave the expert advice to Red Fox. And if you are wondering why we let a fox around all these sheep...well, she's house trained so it is safe.
This story begins on a summer day a couple of years ago (before I started Sheepleg). As a bit of a back story, I was recently placed back on the market by my former lady so I had ample time to do what newly single guys do. I actually have no idea what that is so I decided to heed her advice and take a hike. At this point the longest hike I had been on was about 3 miles on semi-groomed paths. Did I mention I was also about 25 pounds overweight at the time?
So I grab my trusty CamelBak Bottle two Kashi Bars and hit the road. I live about an hour drive from Mammoth Cave National Park so that was my destination for the day. I get to the park and pick up a free map from the visitors center. My eyes honed in on what seemed to be a perfect back country trail, not caring about the distance of 14 miles. So back in the truck to the trail head.
Once at the parking lot, I noticed the ice had already melted in my bottle, probably a combination of the AC in my truck not working too well and the fact it was already 91 degrees outside and it was just past 10 am. At the time I thought nothing of it. I just grabbed the bottle and hit the trail.
Yes, you are right. Two granola bars and .75L of water for a 14 mile hike in 90+ heat. I also have never really thought about wearing bug spray in the past. My ultra manly pheromone stink glands always seemed to ward off bugs...and women it seems. They would literally jump off of me to bite someone else. And lastly, I left my hat sitting in the passenger seat.
So after spending the first 2 miles walking for 50 feet then running 50 yards to keep the gnats out of my ears I was pretty hot. After the 5th mile the water and Kashi bars were gone. As you can imagine the next 9 miles were filled with total misery. At times I had contemplated asking the people on horseback I saw to just drag me out of the woods. I was so desperate to cool off I was pulling some crap I saw on Nat Geo where Cheetahs lay in the dirt to cool of from the ground.
I had a GPS with me, but it was so old and useless I won't embarrass the manufacturer with providing a link to them. It worked so badly that there were stretches of the hike that were not logged because it did not get a signal for several miles through the trees. But one thing I did notice as I reached the end of the hike was that I had 150 feet of climb in the last half mile. And so it was only fitting that I basically crawled out of the woods up the hill to end my day of pain.
I drove top speed (25 MPH in the park) to the closest gas station and bought the largest bottle of water I could find. I was hungry but figured I would wait until I got home to eat something. 1 hour back home and I swung through the drive-thru to Eat Fresh when I got home.
I hit the door and smelled so bad I decided to take a quick shower before I ate. Would you believe that the shower could have been the WORST part of my day? Well it was.
As I was in the shower I noticed what seemed to be mud specs on my legs presumably from where I had to jump a few small muddy ditches. I scrubbed my legs to get the dirt off and as expected it started to run...but how often does dirt move up your leg in the shower. It was at this point I realized I had no less than a hundred (it seemed like a thousand) ticks on my legs below my knees and they were all heading up where the sun never sees the light of day. What a dilemma. I decided to take drastic measures to ensure they did not make it to their perceived destination and shut the water off, ran downstairs, and grabbed a can of Raid Ant Spray. It was the closest thing I had to tick killer.
Now you would not think that tiny little tick bites would leave a hole big enough in your skin to cause any spray to sting when applied. But as I was, you would be wrong. As I sprayed my legs above the knee to keep a line of resistance against any invaders to the promised land the cloud made its way down to the battlefield where it seeped into each individual bite mark and proceeded to burn in a fashion I had never quite encountered before. In my past I have been sprayed with pepper spray, and let me tell you that I would prefer pepper spray to this feeling any day of the week.
Confident the advancing enemy had been slowed enough to where I could figure out my next move, I ran back downstairs to look up the proper method of removing them. After reading that burning them would cause a massive poison vomit fest in my body I decided that tweezers would be the way to go.
Back in the bathroom filled with the haze of Raid I grabbed a cup, half filled with water, got the tweezers, and commenced picking. Not too bad on the first leg. Most of the enemy had buried their heads back in and were relatively easy to get since they were not moving any longer. They came up fairly easy. As I continued plucking the ticks and the occasional freckle (ouch) from my legs, the days exhaustion and hunger start to settle in. I am a naturally shaky guy, I have no idea why, but I have never won a single game of Operation in my life. That coupled with no food and a short 14 mile hike causes trembling that would cause shaken baby syndrome in someone less thick headed than I.
Thank goodness for Yoga. If it weren't for recently getting into the practice regularly I would have never been able to get all of them off my legs. This was the time I really could have used my former lady. Only someone that close to me was going to help/see me in that predicament, much less check my brown eye for ticks! After nearly 2 hours of picking at my skin and double checking the nether-regions for any who made it that far (thankfully none did) I gave up. I really wish I would have taken a picture of the carnage inside my cup of water. It was so filled with ticks floating in the water you could barely see through to the bottom.
I did take pictures of my ankles later as they and my feet started to swell.
It is important to note that I was wearing socks during my hike so how the little turds got in my shoes all the way down to my toes is beyond me. I still have a scar on my big toe just before the nail from this trip. For two weeks afterwards I could not tie my shoes nor sleep without slamming Benadryl every night. Partially for the pain and partially because it knocked me out. Believe me, when it wore off, I woke up...immediately.
From that day forward I have a new best friend.
Happy Hiking!
The Shepherd
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Stories from The Shepherd
2 comments:
Thanks for the story. I was captivated as you ran up and down the steps. The itching had to drive you insane afterward. So, did this experience persuade you to become the outdoor expert you are today?ReplyDelete
Hello MamaLife609,ReplyDelete
You are very welcome. I doubt my words could properly describe the fear I had while running up and down the stairs. I would certainly not consider myself an outdoor expert. But no, I just like to be outside doing anything whether it is hiking, fishing, planting, etc. I started Sheepleg for two reasons: 1. Retirement plan. 2. Success is more than making money. I appreciate everything I have earned / been blessed with and enjoy giving back to those who are not as fortunate.
Thank you for the comment! :)
Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)


text:
Street Jackets - MensSave on Men's Street Jackets at Proboardshop.com! Great selection of street gear at unbelievably low prices. Proboardshop has been selling Street Jackets and outdoor gear for over 30 years and we're proud of it.
Please refine here More in the Outlet Shop.
- Brand: Quiksilver
Street Jackets More in the Outlet Shop.
Quiksilver Ferris Parka JacketReg: $249.95 On Sale: $187.95
Size: Medium, Large, X-Large
Quiksilver Mathieu Crepel Riding Shirt
Size: Medium, LargeReg: $99.95 On Sale: $39.95
Quiksilver Mileage JacketReg: $99.95 On Sale: $59.95
Size: X-Small, Small, X-Large
Quiksilver Mumford Jacket
Size: LargeReg: $150.00 On Sale: $97.95