Monday, September 1, 2008

My caulk beads are fallin' off...

Hey there ladies and gents. Thanks for tuning in. Before I get into this narrative allow me to clarify the title of this post for you. Before I set off on this trip I lined the bottom of my sleeping pad with beads of silicone caulk. This prevents the pad from sliding around on the tent floor at night (a little trick I picked up from the pros). They are beginning to fall off, and I'm taking it as a cue that its time to go home.

I'm in Davis right now stayin with my aunt and uncle for the night. All last week I was in Yosemite just camping out and hiking during the day. Yosemite and Glacier are in a close race for first place as my favorite park on this trip. The granite domes and walls there are awe inspiring. I overdid it, hiking 50 miles in three days, 26 of those on the first day. As a result I tweaked the muscle in my right shin and had to hike out about 20 miles with a limp and a 42 lb pack on my back. Weak sauce.

I woke up at 4:15 am on Friday and gunned it here, to Davis, to do a river rafting trip on the south fork of the American River. My cousin Max is 18 and is guiding this summer, and my uncle Jeff is a veritable river spawn. So with Max and Jeff guiding we ran a two day trip with a bunch cousin Matty's friends from UCSB. We camped the first night and stayed at my aunt and uncle's cabin up near Sutter Creek on Sunday. It was an awesome labor day weekend and it was really cool to see cousin Max and uncle Jeff guiding together.

Now on a serious note, some asshole recently tried to scam my grandparents out of a bunch of money. Someone called my gramma posing as myself in distress, saying that "I" was in jail in Montreal having been busted with marijuana. He wanted her to Western Union $5,200 up to "me" in Quebec. She panicked at first, as any concerned grandmother would, then got her cool back and asked "me" questions like what preschool I went to and what was my best friend's name growing up. The guy couldn't answer the questions, but kept the act up and sounded very convincing. My family finally got hold of me later that day but had a pretty good scare for a while. Apparently this is a pretty common scam so warn your grannies. Nicely done gramma, that guy got more than he bargained for with you.

So my trip is kind of winding down. I plan on being home in about a week. I'm gonna head down 395 on the east side of the Sierras, through a section of the Mojave desert and then home. I will have covered over 8,000 miles and been out for three months when it's all done. It's been an amazing trip full of spectacular scenery, reconnecting with friends and meeting new ones, and a couple of close calls. I can honestly say that I'm ready to get back to real life and start saving money again, but that usually only lasts about a week before I get the urge to fuck off again. This will probably be the last post to this blog but I'll put up a new batch of pics once I'm home. Thanks to everyone who kept tabs on me. Much love and I'll catch you soon.

Dane

"We spend our life trying to bring together in the same instant a ray of sunshine and a free bench."

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