Ready to Go!

            I’ve mentioned a few times that I enjoy running. Sometimes before I start running, though, I have to give myself little pep talks, exclaiming things like, “Alright, let’s kill tonight! Let’s do three miles in less than 20 minutes! You’re an animal!” One day I hope to compete in a marathon, but before that I’ll have to train for it, mentally and physically. I can’t imagine trying to pace myself over 26 miles without preparing for the task. At least a month’s worth of preparation would be necessary in order for me to feel ready. The whole process may sound grueling to some, but a marathon is something that a person can take pride in having completed and the feat is certainly hard to beat.

            You may not be a running enthusiast, but you should be able to relate to the concept of preparing for something. If you’re a storm chaser, you’ve got to have the proper gear and information before tracking down the next hurricane. Are you determined to find inner peace through meditation? You might have to turn off the lights and turn on some relaxing New Age music. Should you wish to express your appreciation of da Vinci’s artwork through music, you will want to research a few things before writing “The Ballad of Mona Lisa.” The point is, depending on what you are working on, you will always be making preparations of some sort throughout your life.

            I’m planning a backpacking trip this summer. Unfortunately, as fun as it may sound, I can’t just say, “I wanna be free! I’ll let Mother Nature look after me!” and take off without any food or tent or maps. I’ve consulted the calendar so I can pick out the best week to be absent from work as well as research trends in weather in order to predict the best time of the summer to go. I’d like to avoid wet weather. Backpacking in the rain is no fun. The rain actually ruins a lot of things for a lot of people, especially those that are nearly witches or full-on witches, because it causes anything between a slight rash to death. A backpacker will simply be bogged down with soggy gear.

            When it comes to plans and preparations I’ve got my own vices and virtues. I like to wing it most of the time, but bad experiences have helped me change my ways. The time-old adage, “Haste makes waste,” is a mantra I constantly have to repeat to myself before embarking on a hiking, camping, or even road trip. I would love to trade mistakes I’ve made while rushing to do an outdoor activity for better memories. Not planning properly has led to arguments, discomfort, unhappiness, and other unpleasant results. There have been multiple instances when a friend has had to stall me from jumping into a potentially disastrous situation, such as stepping out onto a frozen lake that wasn’t all that frozen or cannonballing off a bridge into a river that turned out to be only five feet deep and full of jagged rocks. (Thanks, Mark!)

            Oh, glory abounds when you spend time planning ahead. Well-made plans are guaranteed to create some good memories. It really is worth it when your friend Sarah smiles (supposing you have a friend named Sarah; if not, replace “Sarah” with your friend’s actual name) because you brought graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate bars on your campout. Remember, planning in advance has often saved the day, including the time I avoided causing a panic at the disco by practicing all my cool dance moves before trying them out on the dance floor, so do yourself and your family and friends a favor and invest a little more time to make your plans this summer less stressful and extra special.

Shake It!

            This past Tuesday marked a planned, statewide earthquake drill called the Great Utah ShakeOut. You may have participated in an exercise in your community in order to raise awareness about the big earthquake that’s supposed to be hitting Utah on December 21, 2012. Oh, wait. That’s when the aliens invade. Anyway, Utah could be host to a doozy of a tremor one of these days, and it’s always best to have some sort of plan just in case it happens anytime during your life.
            I always like to think that the “Big One” will hit right after I reach the peak of Mount Olympus. I’ll be surveying the valleys below, when BAM!, everything starts to violently shake. The earth will open up between the base of the mountains and the foothills. Land, roads, homes, and ants will start pouring into the void. And then I’ll watch as the foothills quickly disappear into the gaping abyss, and then the mountainside. By the time the earth begins to erode beneath my feet, though, the hole in the valley floor will have been filled to capacity and I will be triumphantly poised on top of a 50-foot pile of rocks that minutes before stood just over 9,000 feet.
            Sure, we’d all like to choose where we’re going to be when an earthquake hits, but earthquakes are sneaky things and no one gets to choose their location during such a disaster. The only thing we can choose is to be somewhat ready with emergency plans. First aid kits are always great to have, as well as spare food in your car and home.

And don’t forget the meeting place. Choose an area that is well away from any potential dangers, like power lines or large buildings. Of course, if there is a chasm between you and your meeting place, chances are you’re going to have to find some other way of notifying your friends or family that you made it. But knowing that others will be trying to reach the same place as you can give you hope. And hope goes a long way in a situation involving a natural disaster.

The worst-case scenario for an earthquake is death, but the step up from that is finding yourself in a building that could collapse on top of you at any moment. Earthquakes can be so sudden and violent that it is impossible to reach the relative safety outside the building. I remember learning in school earthquake drills that you should find shelter under a table or desk or doorway. Turns out that tables or desks are still a good option, but a doorway leaves you very open to falling objects. When an earthquake happens, you should drop to the ground or floor, and then crawl to the nearest safe place. Sometimes the corner of a room is the safest place. When ceilings cave in, you’ve got a better chance in a corner of not being crushed.

Let’s all hope that we are at the top of whatever mountain we’re climbing when an earthquake hits, but if not, let’s have a plan in the case that the earthquake takes us by surprise (which it most definitely will). I’d wish you “Good luck,” but it doesn’t quite feel right for a natural disaster, so I’ll simply say, “Be prepared!”

Moab

            I was sitting at the counter of the Love Muffin Café in Moab when I overheard another customer say to the cashier, “Ugh, I can’t stand the tourists. And it’s only going to get worse as we get closer to summer.” Instantly bristling, I wanted to shoot back with, “We tourists are the reason this town even exists,” but I held my tongue and avoided starting a local-vs.-tourist war. The café was undoubtedly full of both sides and it would have been a bloody mess. Plus, it was a café, not a saloon.

I get the resident’s frustration, though. I understand how annoying confused, oblivious, wide-eyed visitors can be. But seriously, don’t live near two National Parks and countless other natural marvels full of bike trails and waterways and expect people to stay away. That mentality is so French: build a whole bunch of cool buildings and then complain when they attract people who want to see them (by the way, deep down I love ze French).

Moab is like one big, huge, 3.6-square-mile hostel. As each day winds down, all the bikers, RVs, hikers, kayakers, tour buses, and horseback riders reconvene within the city’s limits and everyone has dinner and drinks together. Then they all go to sleep, wake up the next day and spread back out across the open landscape in search of more adventure and discovery. Moab offers a fragment of what an old Western town was: a meeting place for anyone who happened to be passing by.

Despite its subtle creepiness and backwater status, I like Moab. More so in the winter than the summer, but either way it’s an exciting place. I love that you only have to drive a few miles away from the town and have plenty of things to see and do, in any direction. My favorite thing in the world is to hike and the area surrounding Moab is full of cool hikes, like the Fisher Towers or the Corona Arch trails. It’s nice to be able to find a secluded area and observe the striking colors and supernatural rock formations of the desert.

If I could I would move to Moab and go on adventures every day. I actually envy the customer in the Love Muffin who was lamenting tourist season. How would it be to wake up every morning and think, “Should I embark on a three-day backpacking trip or kayak the Colorado?” I would never get tired of finding new areas to explore. Perhaps I would take up amateur photography or sketching in addition to keeping a field book full of all of my thoughts and notes about the places I visit.

Unfortunately, we can’t all live in Moab; mainly because there aren’t enough houses. But we can visit it as tourists and enjoy it for a few days at a time. I’m planning a couple of hikes into Canyonlands for my next visit to Moab. I’ll probably pick up some pre-made sandwiches from one of the restaurants in town, go on my hike, return to Moab, eat dinner at a steakhouse, walk the busy main street as the desert night cools everything off, and then fall asleep to thoughts of the next day’s hike. It will be hard to wait.

Escape

            When I was a teenager, I had three secret areas on my parents’ property that I would escape to in order to think. The first area wasn’t all that secret, but it was secluded and I could sit on a log and no one could see me behind the trees. It was perfect for daydreaming. The second area was a little more secret; I had used branches to hide it from prying eyes, making the area look like a super thick copse. It was perfect for planning. The third area was hard to get to, making it extremely secret, but with a set of observant eyes, anybody could find me. The hiding spot was at the top of a tree. It was perfect for disappearing.

            We all have a place we can go where the world ceases to exist and time is irrelevant; a place where we can reevaluate our thoughts and figure out the puzzles in our lives. Nature and the outdoors have always afforded a sanctuary for my busy mind. A quiet room in my house is not enough sometimes. Just knowing that my cell phone could ring at any given time can be nerve-wracking. Every now and again I like to know that I am completely alone with my self. Perspectives and emotions can change when given enough time to consider them. I like giving myself time to think out my personal convictions and desires.

            My cousin recently remarked that he is going to “go off the grid” this summer, which means he is going to take his family on a camping trip and make sure that any electronic devices are left where they belong: with the civilized world. This is something I try to do every day, but work always gets in the way. It has always been a dream of mine to take a backcountry backpacking trip for a week or so and forget about all of the complicated problems of my normal life. I want to worry about one thing: survival. And perhaps when the next s’more break will be.

            I love the simplifying effect that nature seems to have on me. For example, I normally check the Internet twenty times a day for any new national or local news. When I’m on a hike or camping or just hiding in a grove of trees, I really don’t care to know up-to-the-minute details about anything, and instead I start thinking about how wonderful life is. I can let all of my built-up stress into the open blue sky like a bunch of balloons. Unfortunately, the balloons always pop as they’re flying over my house, and when I get home, there they are, waiting for me again. But at least I was free of them for a little while.

            I look forward to revisiting many of my favorite trails and hidden valleys this summer. Each one is waiting for me with a specific thought or reflection, and though I won’t be able to return to every location, I’ll most likely choose the ones that give me the most to ponder and enjoy. The best therapist out there is often the one that always listens but never responds: Mother Nature.