Update: the fundraiser is funded!! Thank you SO MUCH, everyone!!! 🎉🎉🎉 Muffy and I will roll out one blog post per day for the next 9 days. Yall RULE! 😀🎉🎉🎉🎉 Francis' asylum appeal fundraiser (click here) needs just $160 to reach its goal, and then my last nine blog posts from the Mogollon Rim Trail … Continue reading Francis’ fundraiser is so close! 😀

5/6/19 Mileage: 13.8 350.2 miles hiked I hardly sleep, for the second night in a row. Why is civilization like this? Four walls, the hum of electric wires, the small glow of charging electronics. Air that doesn't move. The sense that I'm missing out on something, that something is happening somewhere without me. That I'm … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 27: The calm before the storm

5/5/19 Mileage: zero We've grown bored of zeros. At the beginning of the trail it was fun- let's zero in every town! And our bodies were sore and exhausted, so it was great. We're stronger now though, we don't need to spend a whole day in bed in a motel room every section, doing nothing. … Continue reading Mogollon Rim Trail day 26: zero in Greer

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