I’ve been sick for about a week: a bad cold, but just a cold nonetheless. A couple days of swollen glands and tonsils, a couple days of fluid-filled chest cavity, a couple days of feeling like I could almost scrape up the energy to walk the dog if I concentrated. Over the weekend I slept. Woke up to greet the morning with Becky, kissed her as she left for her errands, and went back to bed to sleep until three.
Last night walking home from BART I noticed in the cool night that I felt energetic and fully oxygenated. How wonderful that feels.
I am going to hike on Diablo again this weekend. Probably not to the summit: perhaps another visit to Eagle Peak. I didn’t get nearly enough hiking in in the Mojave to suit me, a mere thirteen miles or so over the week. Call it thirteen, and include the night walk at Mesquite Spring, five miles over the floor of Death Valley under the moon. The payphone was up the road at the ranger station, and I wanted to call Becky. The quarter moon was bright enough that I needed no flashlight, though the verge between pavement and gravel blurred amusingly at times. Creosote by moonlight is a lovely thing. I reached the phone after an hour and called just as Becky walked in the door. An hour later I walked back. That night I camped at the lip of Death Valley Wash, a ten-foot cliff a short stumble from my tent. At half past asleep two coyotes sang not more than a dozen feet away. I lay frozen in my sleeping bag.
