It's Here!!!

No post in a while but that doesn't mean that I haven't been hiking...!!!

It was a tough May with the off hours training, increased work load at work, plain ole stress and our weekend training hikes at Dinosaur Valley State Park (7 hours), Ft. Worth Nature Center (2 weekends 8 and 5 hours respectively) and a return to Cedar Ridge last weekend (3 hours). Our Grand Canyon team put on a fabulous food FEAST!! Thanks Debbie, Gaby, Barbara and everyone else who pitched in for the grub. It was fantastic!!

But - It's finally the big weekend!! I am so excited about the payoff we all have been working for.

I'm here in Ft. Stockton at the Day's Inn looking forward to tomorrow's drive into Big Bend. Our itinerary is set...and it looks like the weather will be on our side...Saturday's high's are forecast for the low to mid 90's...tomorrow and Friday the high's are expected to be in mid to upper 80's...you can't tell me God doesn't exist...

Thursday we hike the Window Trail (~4.5 miles round trip) in the evening to watch the sun set at the Window...The Window is the drainage point for the Chisos Basin and is supposed to have great views west and southwest. Should be drop dead beautiful.

Friday, the team will go rafting down the Rio Grande and I plan to hike the Emory Peak trail (9.5 miles round trip). I didn't sign up to raft because my bride and I were planning to hike around the Chisos basin that day. Instead she stayed home with the dogs since we couldn't bring them to the hotel with us. I'm probably too picky about who takes care of the dogs but they're such a big part of our family that I just can't let someone whose not a "family" member take care of them. Anyhow, I'm pumped about the solo hike to Emory Peak. I know that I'm taking a slight risk by hiking solo but I think I need to do this one for my dad.

I know that I haven't said much about him other than he died from CML 16 years ago this past February and that he was an avid outdoorsman. But I hope the Friday solo hike will help put to bed that last bit of grieving I haven't let go of yet.

The anger. I've been angry these past 16 years at both his passing and the disease that took him. And I think it's finally time to put it down.

You see, he died when his 5 grandsons were only 7, 4, and 2 years old. The years they all needed each other the most. He had so much to teach them (and me, his lifelong learner!). We had grown closer too. We butted heads often as fathers and sons do when I was growing up. But I was finally seeing him as the rich source of wisdom that fathers are. And he was finally seeing me as a man in my own right. It was sweet.

But then life played the cruel cards it sometimes does and, ironically, the one that got him was the one that kept him indoors and close to home...oh, he found things to do outside, but he couldn't fish or hunt or camp because of the chemo and the fatigue.

All of my fondest memories of my dad were those times I spent outdoors with him. About 2 years before his diagnosis we took our last hunting trip together. We went to Saratoga, Wyoming for the end of antelope season and the beginning of mule deer season. We went with my father-in-law Gus, his son Gus and my good friend Rusty and his father. It was an unforgettable trip. The one where I still remember just about every detail. We both took our antelope towards the end of the hunt.

A very short two years after that we watched as dad slowly withered away from the cancer. He had a chance to enter drug trials for a new drug but was declined due to his quadruple bypass about 10 years earlier. It was hard to watch him die the way he did. I think that he'd finally grown tired of fighting it too. I was angry about that the most though. I'd never known him to tire of fighting anything.

In the end though he died at home with my mom and my youngest sister at his side and was interred at Houston National Cemetery.

But that's the way it was and still is.

So Friday is the day. Friday I plan challenge myself and fulfill a promise to all of my donors. To do something I've never done for those who can't.

Sorry 'bout the downer story, but this is what the hike is all about for me and I just realized that it's now the way I'll go about fighting Leukemia for those who can't. One trail at a time.

Saturday, we hike the Lost Mine Trail which is just east of the lodge we're all staying at...that one is about a 5.5 mile round trip and will definitely be a challenge for me because of the Friday hike. I can't wait!!

I think that we're also going to Alpine and Terlingua on either Friday or Saturday night as well.

You can check out Google Earth for virtual tours of the trails I mentioned.

I'll be incommunicado until Sunday...I'll keep notes and update when I'm back at the casa...

Thanks again for all of your support!!

DQ