{"id":606,"date":"2006-08-17T07:42:42","date_gmt":"2006-08-17T12:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/?p=606"},"modified":"2007-12-03T13:33:24","modified_gmt":"2007-12-03T21:33:24","slug":"getting-out-on-the-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2006\/08\/17\/getting-out-on-the-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting out on the trail"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the Fresno Bee’s John Muir Trail blog: <\/a><\/p>\n

As we start out, I feel more like I’m herded than hiking. I’m dejected and lonely and thinking about the people who say I shouldn’t be out here. And how my very purpose of being out here — to write about it — is slipping away.<\/p>\n

But with every step I still feel better. I know it can seem kind of precious to talk about trees and rocks speaking. You can’t really get by with it unless you’re John Muir or Rogers and Hammerstein. But nevertheless, there’s something in the air. The Sierra is whispering to me: “Oh, ignore them. Look around. You’re welcome here.”<\/p>\n

I flash back to the Desiderata, a philosophical statement that used to be on a poster by my dorm room, so I just happened to read it every day even though I thought it was a bit trite. I had no idea until this moment decades later that I had memorized it:<\/p>\n

“Do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness … You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These are the kinds of details the Bee folks were hoping would arrive in more or less real time, but the hikers’ satellite phone had other plans, so this was posted after the hiker got home. Just another of those “don’t trust your fanny to technology in the wilderness” fables.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the Fresno Bee’s John Muir Trail blog: As we start out, I feel more like I’m herded than hiking. I’m dejected and lonely and thinking about the people who say I shouldn’t be out here. And how my very…<\/p>\n

Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[156,107],"tags":[519,512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}