Things you would like to remember about the first hundred miles:

Mariposa lilies. 

Cactus and agave blossoms. Beetles and caterpillars and paint brushes and sheet mica. And whatever this adorable thing is. 

Lizards can be comically graceless. Bouncing off miniature hedges made of grass. Writhing wildly into holes they don’t fit into. 

You want to remember that time the ground was bright red for ten yards.

Your body talks. You are learning to listen. Still- The conclusion is always the same, walk it off. 

When we say a plants name it’s like a spell to make them multiply. “Look juniper!” Turns the next five miles scrubby and deep green. White bells of yucca. Tentacles of ocotillo. Lupine. Live oak. Mariposa lily, I cant seem to cast right. 

You saw five bunnies and the last, off trail a little toward the water cache, was just a tiny perfect baby. 

Yo saw a grey and red snake tail that scared you a little and Ruth a little more. 

Also, you knew about grasshoppers but you didn’t really know about their wings. 

Every day is so different. As soon as you think a pattern is forming it can’t. The challenges and the conditions are so dynamic that your plans will change. 

The afternoon you felt strongest was the night you had to bail. The day you struggled hardest was proceeded by your favorite dinner and goodnight. 

What affinity you had for crane flies, leftover from a childhood of thinking they were fairy associates, wore out. You don’t love them at all any more. 

Mariposa Lily. 

All conditions prove temporary. You will not feel hot forever. Or wet. Or itchy. Or hungry. That pain in your foot did pass. And your shit mood did too. 

But also- there is no great realization about your new life on trail that hasn’t altered itself or just proven entirely not true.

-C