5/4/19 Mileage: 14 336.4 miles hiked It's cold. "We should've slept in the trailer," laughs Muffy, as we heat water for our respective coffee and tea in the morning, too cold to get out of our sleeping bags. Oh well. Lesson learned. Gray dawn gives way to long yellow light and I watch Muffy drink … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 25: the pioneer myth

5/3/19 Mileage: 20 322.4 miles hiked It's cold in the large meadow in which Los Burros campground sits. We hike out in the morning in all our layers, even our gloves. There are groves of aspens, now, in the ponderosas, white and ghostly, not even the hints of new leaves yet. Everything has a damp, … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 24: alpine wonderland

5/2/19 Mileage: 23 302.4 miles hiked I often dream that I'm lost in some huge, ancient, labrynthine, falling down house, wandering forgotten corridors and discovering secret rooms, meeting interesting people or alternately, being chased. One house in particular I've visited a number of times in my dreams; sometimes friends are living there, in lofts they've … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 23: up into the white mountains!

5/1/19 Mileage: 6 279.4 miles hiked I'm awake in the middle of the night from wild dreams. The motel fan is blowing in the dark, I open the notes app on my phone and write some dialogue for my next book. Bits of this book are always coming to me at random times, started coming … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 22: molasses pace

4/30/19 Mileage: zero Show Low is a an exaggerated rural American cliche. Trump stickers everywhere, American flags, camo, massive pickup trucks. That anyone could support Trump is insane, but of course many Americans do, because of the capitalist white supremacist values on which this nation is founded. Trump is America, distilled to its purest essence. … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 21: zero in Trump land

4/29/19 Mileage: 11 273.5 miles hiked It's a warm morning with the sun fighting with the clouds and no shade, on account of the tallest trees burning long ago and I ate the wrong combination of bars? Or something and my stomach hurts and I'm listening to more of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 20: some ways to fight white supremacy in the outdoors community

4/28/19 Mileage: 23 262.5 miles hiked It's cold. I curl up in my sleeping bag. We're so close to space, up here in this high ponderosa forest. Space is cold. The coldest. The sun goes away and space comes in. It's a good reminder. Of what, I do not know. I think of Tucson. It's … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 19: General Crook Was a Piece of Shit

4/27/19 Mileage: 24 239.5 miles hiked We're drifting off when the wild horses return. Thundering, clomping, snorting. Muffy claps again and they thunder off. A minute later they're back. They're eating the grass on the bit of flat land where we're camped. It must be extra good grass. They circle the tent and monch the … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 18: wild horses

4/26/19 Mileage: 15 215.5 miles hiked We want to hike the miles we missed when we hitched into Forest Lakes Estates to catch the store before it closed, but how? Should we hitch back to the trailhead where we bailed? That seems hard to conceptualize, for some reason, while I drink my drip coffee in … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 17: porch couch

4/25/19 Mileage: zero We wake in the morning in our dumpy motel room, microwave water for our respective coffee and tea and are faced with the same conundrum we had last night- how do we do our laundry? The motel has no laundry and the nearest laundromat is a 15 mile hitch away. We make … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 16: the magic cabin of Forest Lakes Estates