The updating has hit a bit of a wall. It’s certainly not that nothing exciting has been happening- it’s that we’ve recently run into some hard luck.
We wanted to show you how our last few days have gone, but due to some pretty intense technical difficulty, we’ll have to write it out as best we can... (but don’t expect the whole story- we need to leave you wanting more.) The big news is that we’ve already had to exchange a camera in Denver. Our GoPro was doing less recording and more malfunctioning than we like in a camera. So equipped with a new one, we hit the trail. Unfortunately we later found that the second camera also had taken some poor footage, (an easy fix). Today we learned that our main camera, the one that does all the heavy lifting, is now unusable due to a “motor fan malfunction”. We’ve had better days. After trying to access our past footage to put together another video for you faithful followers, we learned that the memory card has also gone on strike. What can we say? We work our equipment hard and require the best. Lets go back a couple days. We got a ride out of Denver with Kaettie (keh-tee), the outdoor and husky dog lover. A ride that allowed dogs and stops for fifty cent ice cream at ‘Little America’. I compared this to the infamous ‘Wall Drug’.... but smaller. We landed in Salt Lake City (SLC) and met the likes of Donna and Matt. One fed us and the other took us to his men’s Bible study in the morning. I’ll let you guess which is which. All in all SLC was good to us the first couple days. We found ourselves up a mountain on day 11. We hiked for hours and camped unbeknownst to the Wasatch park rangers. While on the mountain hike, we very much went off the train and headed for higher elevation. Our heads down, our packs heavy, we didn’t see the moose just ten yards ahead of us. It’s amazing how much the butt of a moose looks like a bear at first glance. A glance turned out not to be enough, we went trucking after the creature for better shots.... you’ll have to enjoy those later. We spent the night on the mountain on a cabin porch we found. The perfect spot away from bears, moose and unexpected flash floods. We would like to thank the anonymous owner of our home that night. We took the 8 mile hike down the mountain with some help from a kind woman at mile 4. She took us to, “a church I think you’ll like, the homeless go there. You’ll fit right in.” K2 church was less than impressive but still left us with plenty of conversation over lunch at the IHOP across the street. Time flew by on day 12. We charged both our spiritual and physical batteries at that house of pancakes and left looking for a place to rest our heads for the night. We found ourselves deep in the downtown of SLC. A poor place for Highway Walkers. Stop lights ruin our flow. Downtown put us in a bit of a pinch come evening. We needed a place to go. We walked towards a fabled KOA, which led us to a neighborhood you don’t want to leave your car unlocked in and to this day remains as much a mystery as Nessie or Stonehenge. Times were desperate and we were looking for an abandoned building to squat in for the night. Roofs, vacant buildings, porches... anything. While trying to occupy an empty warehouse, were given away by some barking junk yard dogs, their owner was close behind to chase us off. Luckily we always have the camera to make us look legitimate, but we were keeping it in the case in this neck of the woods. It was hard to fit in with 75 liter packs on our back in the trenches of SLC. Times were hard, so we figured the best plan was to occupy the IHOP once again and jump a train out the next morning. We did just that. I don’t know if too many of you have had the opportunity to sleep in an IHOP or a similar 24 hour business... but it gives you plenty of time for reflection. There is a certain hopelessness and humility that goes with relying on the kindness of others. If the waitresses from earlier that afternoon hadn’t recognized us, we would have been told to scram. Instead they held the doors open for us and were happy to put us up for the night. We slept for maybe an hour or two and left at 5 a.m. the next morning to jump a train, but at least we were safe. That’s as far as this story goes folks... hopefully there will be some pictures for you to dream over soon. Until then, safe travels.
2 Comments
Mom #2
6/15/2011 04:03:59 am
Good grief...I guess you've seen far better days! Might be that there's nowhere else to go but up from here on in. I praise God you are still safe and that no snarling dogs or big-butted moose got you.
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