TRAIL DAY 67
Wed, Apr 27, 2016 A 0 day in Marion. I took my tablet, stand and keyboard to McDonald’s past Mi Puerto and across the street. I had pancakes, eggs and hash browns and then several cups of coffee while I blogged.
Oh, I use that term loosely. I had written what I wanted to publish to my blog at sorenwest.wordpress.com and added the pictures that went with the text. Lots of pictures. They all uploaded to the site and I positioned them where I wanted them.
I should add that this was my second blog site. I still have a couple of items posted out there in cyberspace on one or two other sites I was lured into by something or other. Blogging – “it’s a piece of cake.” Like all things computer related.
The words “a piece of cake” translate into, “I haven’t the foggiest idea how to tell you.” Or, “Somebody showed me and I haven’t any idea how I got here.” Or, “I simply don’t have the patience or the time to tell you.” They’re like the words of one giving directions: “You can’t miss it.” They mean, “I know where it is, so you surely must” or, “I have no idea how to communicate to you what you need to do to get there from here.”
Well, when I got back to my blog later that day back at the Inn, the pictures – pooof – gone! Where? Why? How?
Only after a 2nd time of uploading the same pictures did it dawn on me that maybe the pictures from my 16 megapixel camera were too large – and maybe WordPress did not automatically condense them to an appropriate size for the web. Nor did it let you know that the pictures are too large. It accepted them and then choked on them later. If cyber geeks can anticipate what choices you’ll make, why can’t they downsize photos for their websites?
The 01011011 world is not a friendly one and the jargon-stuffed gate tenders know no other language.
My hard-won hunch was correct. I Googled a free online resizing program and adjusted my pictures to a size I saw somewhere as appropriate for the web.
The trail is a break from so many issues of life – but I don’t know if, once done, it helps deal with them. They seem now to stand out in bold relief. Maybe it’s just me.
Back at the Inn, the water was off. Something happened at a water main and the Inn and dwellings in the vicinity were the losers. The Innkeepers were willing to refund charges for the day and let us go across the street to Econo Lodge. It was tempting for a while but I opted to hang in. . .and, happily, the water came on late in the afternoon. I could shower again.
Sometime on this zero day, I met “Conundrum” and “China” (Chē-na) from Alaska. They were a cute, zippy couple and I think they were on a thru-hike although their gear looked very new. We had some talk about that fact and they told me they had to restock after problems with stuff they’d had at the start. When I saw them, they were awaiting a ride back to the trail and I’d never see them again. A lingering, romantic, far-away thought of Alaska hung in the air as they left lending all the more music to that name. Maybe not as much as Singapore or Hong Kong or Shenandoah. Perhaps it’s the mountains, the snow, the cold, the far north, the upper reaches of our planet. I think of a friend of my oldest who spent 13 months at the South Pole and of some lines from a poem I wrote in 2003:
The desert calls, the mountain top
The jungle trail, the sea
The cold that threatens blood to stop
They’re calling out to me
The distant and extreme call out because they put the lie to routine, the commonplace, the usual. There’s no “I’ll have the usual, John” in such places where the heart beats faster and the all senses are alert. Alive! Something down in the gut where the marrow and DNA and electrons and nuclei have come together to be me, somewhere at the beginning of time when the quarks of our tissues were milliseconds old, something inexpressibly original, foundational, primordial – way back – says cook me, bake me, stretch me, form me. “See Mother, I make all things new” he said as he climbed under his eternal load to the moment when the heavens cracked open.
Alaska!
Oh there is an eternal reach in even that one name.
I trust Conundrum and China got back to the trail and hiked all the way to their destination however far before returning home. I’ll encounter their home state again to wonderful effect in the Whites when I meet a couple who moved far north to engage with native culture on their turf.
As I write, I recall the Federal Express package deal. On arrival, I may have called Bonnie to mail my summer gear overnight to the Travel Inn but it did not arrive during my planned zero and I was going to have to stay for the delivery on my departure day.
Back to Mi Puerto for another delightful Mexican meal. While there, I planned the logistics of the next leg and back at the Inn, I organized gear and goods for stuffing in the backpack, reviewed what I’d send home and hit the hay.
Day #67 Marion, VA 0 miles