Mark-<br><br>If your TJ is half as colorful and fun as this post, I will be a faithful reader. <br><br>Hope you have been reunited with your bowels by now......<br><br>Wheeew<br><br><b><i>mark v <allemande6@yahoo.com></i></b> wrote:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> <br>I loved your post the other day, but regarding trail<br>journals...HARSH! I happen to like reading all sorts<br>of different kinds of them, especially the whining. <br>If you believe some whining journals, the trail is<br>nothing but a bed of roses, and then i get out there<br>myself and POW! it's not so easy. I'll take<br>well-written whining...for example Recline's journal.<br><br>But since it seems so many sensitive eyes are damaged<br>by journals not to their liking, i'll give you an<br>advance primer on my own, so you can decide whether<br>you subject yourself to reading that first deadly<br>entry or
not:<br><br>"few have been able to <br>produce a really good<br>trail journal." <br><br>Mine will be great, as long as you're my mother.<br><br>"(journal your own journal)"<br><br>I'll only have my sherpa writing for me on weekends,<br>so yes i'll journal my own journal.<br><br>"1. Be Consistent."<br><br>I promise to try. When i'm in the middle of the<br>Sierra, or trying to drag myself out of Glacier Peak<br>Wilderness with a broken leg, my journal updates may<br>be delayed. Also, if i'm sleeping or eating that day.<br><br>"Genuine is..."how THEN YOU INstill ciao when you're<br>done now. (that's almost as hard as rhyming "orange"<br>for goodness' sake!)<br><br><br>"Include either GPS points or start and stop<br>locations. That way we<br> can <br>track progress on Google Earth."<br><br>GPS on the trail? too heavy. Start and stop<br>locations, i promise. ("Started in California. <br>Stopped in California. AGAIN."<br><br>"Try to include daily high and low
temps."<br><br>Check, i already do that one.<br><br>"Tell us up front what gear you're taking. Then tell<br>us what you<br> got rid of along the way. And why."<br><br>Check, already did that in my 1/17/08 entry. But i<br>was hoping some of you PCT vets could tell me up front<br>what i'm going to want to get rid of along the way and<br>why.<br><br>"Remember that you chose to hike. It's not a job and<br>you're<br> supposed to <br>be enjoying it."<br><br>Just like one chooses to, oh i don't know, one chooses<br>to get married. That doesn't mean you're going to<br>enjoy every second of it. 51% is probably ok.<br> <br>"No whining."<br><br>No way. However, i don't generally whine in my<br>picture captions, so for the whineless version, just<br>look at the pictures and pretend everything is as<br>happy as you like it to be.<br><br>"Descriptions of breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks<br>do not a good <br>journal make."<br><br>Emma and i differ on that, so for her sake i
might<br>include some limited culinary reviews. Not many<br>though.<br><br>"After a while we don't<br>care what you ate. Might as well describe your daily<br>bowel movements. "<br><br>You mean like, "Today my bowels were really moving. <br>They've made it Oregon, but i'm still in California<br>for another couple weeks. I hope i can put in some 30<br>mile days and catch up to them by September 1st?"<br><br>" Try to keep each days entry under 1500 words."<br><br>So, one word for every 1000 steps. I'll keep count.<br><br>"To date, my favorite journal... <br>...This<br> gentleman<br>never complained, loved his trip, gave wonderful<br>descriptions of the<br> trail, <br>his location, difficulties, joys, etc.<br>It was just a skillfully simple, straight forward<br>journal."<br><br>This guy will complain, but pretty much only about my<br>own failings (and VVR's), may or may not love my trip,<br>give wonderful (to my mom) descriptions, plenty of<br>difficulties, joys (see:
culinary, bowel movements),<br>lots of etc., etc. It will be skillessly enigmatic,<br>complicated, and confusing, on purpose even. I hope<br>you enjoy it!<br><br>markv<br><br>p.s. Re: soap in the streams...if you've ever hiked<br>in a slot canyon stream, you'll see what looks like<br>soap bubbles all the time. They're actually from<br>decomposing plant matter in the water from a dry<br>environment. I don't know the science of it, or<br>whether that's what you saw on the JMT, but it's<br>possible. When i did the JMT after a high snow year<br>(2006), i saw no bubbles. If i had, i would have<br>written a skillfully simple and genuine description of<br>them. Alas, i did not.<br><br>p.p.s. Having free wireless in Phoenix airport is<br>taking the edge off my 4-hour flight delay! All<br>airports should do this...<br><br><br><br><br><br><br> ____________________________________________________________________________________<br>Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your
home page. <br>http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs<br>_______________________________________________<br>Pct-l mailing list<br>Pct-l@backcountry.net<br>To unsubscribe or change list options (digest, etc):<br>http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/pct-l<br></blockquote><br><BR><BR>-Wheeew-<br>www.trailjournals.com/wheeew/<br>---->MexiCan----> 2008<p> 
<hr size=1>Be a better friend, newshound, and
know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51733/*http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ "> Try it now.</a>