Easy Street?...Hardly.

I thought that I could do it. I thought that I could quickly finish this project that I started. But as I've heard before, anything worth having, does not come easy. I don't think that I've ever endured something as mentally and physically taxing as hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. And I've only hiked 95 miles of it! Pisses me off that I get on the trail and experience all the good times and good people and what takes me off is a stupid infection from an abrasion in my leg that I didn't take immediate measures to clean. I received the wound while dodging a rattlesnake who I'm pretty sure, in my mind, was about ready to pump all his juicy venom into my sweaty, dirt covered leg. It was a large diamondback rattlesnake which are very plentiful in the Anza-Borrego Desert in Southern California. The manly thing was that before he could sink his seething fangs into my leg meat, I grabbed his head and looked him in the eye as he hissed, rattled, and squirmed to get away. I said, "You may have venom and fangs but I have balls and brawn. " I growled at my attempted murderer and threw him into the ravine where the coyotes would feast upon him.
Ok...maybe I exaggerated just a tad. To be honest I pretty much ran like a little girl (or boy, for my sexist brothers and sisters), lost my footing, stumbled and fell. That snake freaked the crap out of me. I won't lie. The sad thing is that you get abrasions at home from falling playing with your dog and it is not big deal, but when you haven't showered for 4 days and you clean the cut with dirty hands because you're trying to conserve water in the desert, you are just asking for a bacteria potluck. Remember that when your lower leg swells to the size of a cantaloupe you should probably stop hiking, see a doctor, get a shot in the butt, grab the bottle of anti-biotics, and ice that swollen limb. That is precisely what I did.
I've had a blast hanging with Melinda Hebbel in Loma Linda, CA. I've almost convinced myself to move down here to where the sun shines 340 days out of the year. The missing 25 days are due to smog, brush fires, and the black clouds that hang over the city when the Lakers lose. But, Bend, OR is calling my name. It's pristine mountains, streams, and lakes are a little more inviting than the scorched landscape of Southern California. Sure, there may be lots of surf to ride, rocks to climb, and the possibility of meeting a sugar momma attending medical school here in this Adventist Mecca of Loma Linda is exponentially higher than the rugged landscape of Central Oregon where some women struggle shaving even the hairiest of legs. Their claim is that they have to wear jeans all the time.
Why did I start the Pacific Crest Trail? I don't know...Maybe to get away and deal with a little bit of life that came at me too fast. I'll think about it and get back to you.