So I am in Ohio. Holmes County. I’m staying with my father at his rural home overlooking old farms, spacious pastures, spinning windmills and small country roads that curve and disappear around groves of bright green leaf covered trees and over loose grassy hills. I am sitting on the porch swing letting the afternoon breeze blow against my skin. My father is mowing the lawn. The smells of fresh cut grass catch the wind and fill me with fond memories of childhood in Ohio. It’s calm. And the Pacific Crest Trail seems far away. The reality of distance separates me from the pale dirt path. But it is still present in my recent memory. Vitally present. I am happy to say that I still feel like I did the right thing leaving that trail. And it brings me great comfort. The journey home to Ohio was long and epic.
After I had booked my Amtrak tickets, shuttle and hotel in San Diego, I went to the Mount Laguna general store to inform the clerk that I would not be staying another night. He just shrugged his shoulders and said fine. Another hiker comes and goes. I packed up, showered and put on my hiking clothes that were somewhat cleaner than the previous day as I had washed them in a bucket with detergent provided by the lodge. I turned in my key and then waited on the porch for the shuttle to drive me the 45 minutes down the mountain and back to San Diego. A group of dusty and tired PCT hikers showed up on the porch. I was excited and happy to see some friends from Scout and Frodo’s who I had camped with in Hauser Canyon. They were not hiking as fast as Ro and the others. I silently wondered if my experience would have been different had I hiked with them on day two instead of making my way those 18 miles to Cibbets Campground. But I had made my decision earlier that morning. I was moving on. There was no space in my mind to reflect on a series of maybe and what if scenarios that were removed from the reality of my current experience. At that moment I just desperately wanted to be away from the PCT. I was still recovering from heat exhaustion and dehydration. I was tired and my body felt betrayed by my overzealous attempts to immediately hike long miles.
Days later with many miles of travel and time to recover, I can appreciate the dramatic and overly emotional sentiment of my feelings at Mount Laguna. But in that high mountain space with the warm winds shimmering around the tall pine trees creating sweeping sounds of rushing air overhead, I recalled what a trail angel had said to me as a final token of wisdom before I walked to the Southern Terminus. He said that you will know very quickly whether this trail is right for you. The challenges of hiking in severe heat added to the long water carries effect everyone in different ways. He had known of very strong hikers who had decided to leave the trail after a few days. A hiker who started with my group and had successfully thru hiked the Appalachian Trail the previous year made the decision to get off trail the day before. I was not alone. But I was surprised - remarkably surprised that I boldly found the courage to leave. And now that I had made that decision, to think of “maybe” and “what if” would only seek to confuse my thoughts and doubt my rapid quick purchase of homeward tickets. At that moment, I had followed an intuitive spirit that charged resolutely ahead.
After an hour of waiting, the shuttle arrived. Soon I was winding down the mountain road while the driver spoke to me about driving hikers across Southern California. I would have preferred the quiet but found myself engaging and responding. I discovered that he had studied music in college. I wondered what had brought him from dreams of a musical career to driving a shuttle filled with tired and dirty hikers. Every path is unique. And every choice seems to connect with other choices and suddenly there you are in a place you never thought you would be. I only hoped that he was content and happy with no regrets - just as I contemplated my own choices in the immediacy of the moment.
Arriving in San Diego, I quickly checked in to the hotel and then set out to buy some civilian clothes and toiletries so I could clean up before catching the train at 5:55am the next morning. After an early dinner, I was in bed falling fast asleep.
When I booked my tickets to Ohio, I decided not to travel back the way I had come to California through Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado. I decided to travel north through California, Oregon and Washington to Seattle where I would then catch another train to take me through Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin. The train from Los Angeles would travel north in the direction I would have walked on the PCT. In fact, there were a few places in Oregon and Washington where the train would come close to the trail. I would catch the 5:55am train from San Diego to Los Angeles and then transfer to the train bound for Seattle.
And then morning came, and the journey began.
The train lurched from the Los Angeles Union Station. I watched the world change from the sprawling miles of urban Los Angeles to the colorful coastal beauty of Santa Barbara through to Oakland, Northern California, Mount Shasta and then through the lush green forests of Oregon where the train cut through swaths of tall trees adorning tall mountains looming high above the train and reaching for the sky. I sat in my small room on the train and watched each moment as it passed me by, continually fascinated by the world. With each mile, I was taken further and further from the PCT in Southern California. Though I had left what I thought would be my summer of adventure, I was on a different kind of adventure as I slowly made my way back to the familiar.
Somewhere in Oregon, a few hours before reaching Portland, I found myself preparing to have lunch in the dining car of the train. I had made a reservation for 1:30pm. When I entered the dining car, the attendant told me to sit at an empty table at the very back of the car. Within seconds of sitting down, another couple joined me sitting on the opposite side. I had seen this male/female couple a few times on the train in the dining car. They had caught my attention because the woman always wore a pair of brown framed sunglasses that were perfectly round with dark grey mirrored lenses. And she seemed older than the man who had fading dark hair and a stubble of facial hair with very small almost childlike hands. And sure enough, as they sat down, she looked my way through those round glasses that hid her eyes. They literally rushed into the seats as if they had been waiting for me to sit down alone. Her blonde hair was held back into a loose bun so that stray strands hung around her face. She held out her hand and introduced herself as France. Her companion was Christopher. I took her hand which was almost weightless and introduced myself in return. They were not having anything to eat but rather ordered a vodka tonic and a ginger ale with gin. I found it odd that they would have drinks in the dining car when they could have ordered them in the observation/café car. But within minutes I was put at ease as France began to speak warmly of their travels. They were from Burbank, CA travelling to Portland, OR. After departing the train in Portland, they would drive further to the port city of Astoria. She spoke with poetic flourishes about the beauty of Astoria. However, she quickly turned the conversation toward me. She was particularly interested in my story and began to inquire about why I was on this particular train. When I explained my recent decisions - leaving New York City, embarking on a lengthy hike, deciding to leave early, travelling back to Ohio, hiking the Colorado Trail, etc. – she calmly took it all in with a small smile on her face. She had a melodic way of speaking so that I began to hear her words as cadences of light musical phrases that rose with sudden crescendos and then quickly became quiet with soft whispered hushes. She understood that I was an artist immediately before I even mentioned being a dancer and choreographer. France possessed an intuitive understanding that soon had me pondering every word she spoke. With delicate phrasing, she told me that I should not be afraid of change. She explained that life was full of changes but when you decide to really move on and leave the comforts of everything you know and trust, you can be left feeling vulnerable and scared. With strong conviction, France told me that I was on the right path and that this moment of change was needed to find the next chapter in my life. She was convinced that something wonderful would happen as a result of quitting my job, leaving my home and attempting to hike the PCT. And most importantly I should not be afraid. I found myself staring into those mirrored lenses, seeing my own distorted reflection staring back. They were words that I needed to hear at that moment. And whether I truly believed her or not, I was captivated by her attention. Christopher sat next to her with a kind of resolute silence, staring at me with deep dark eyes and an almost amused smile on his face. I desperately wanted to see France’s eyes to really see her. She said my sensitivity, artistic sensibility and love of life were powerful gifts to possess. I was so taken by the exchange compared to my other dinner conversations where I struggled to engage with people who clearly just wanted to either be left alone or would talk with such insistent force that I couldn’t even respond but ended up just nodding and smiling. No, this was vastly different. France was captivating and a calming force of reassurance. And she seemed genuinely interested in knowing me. On a train from Los Angeles to Seattle, a day after leaving the Pacific Crest Trail and a few hours before arriving in Portland, I was staring into perfectly round mirrored sunglasses silently contemplating everything in my life. Everything.
We said our gracious goodbyes and soon returned to our rooms. When we arrived in Portland, those of us continuing on were allowed to leave the train for a few minutes. As I stepped off the train, I quickly scanned the passengers walking into the Portland train station to see France and Christopher and perhaps say goodbye one last time. But they were nowhere in sight. I had missed them. They were gone.
