Yes, it's an expression that our friend Joe often uses to sign off in emails. It applies here though to describe my anticipation of a Young family backpacking trip now scheduled for the first week of April, 2012.
If the weather allows we will spend five or six days then in the San Rafael Wilderness, an extensive and beautiful land north of Santa Barbara. I fell in love with this wilderness when I was in college in the early 1980s. I spent many trips there, both solo and with college friends. It's a dry country, except where it gets over 5,000 feet in elevation. And except in the riparian zones which are filled with trees and water. The land of Manzana Creek, The Sisquoc River, and The Hurricane Deck.
I went back periodically after college. And then I went back one last time, in April, 1992. This time I had a plan.
I didn't have much time off work then, but I invested a whole week in a backpacking trip with a woman. We eventually went eight days and 65 miles. It was a wonderful trip. We saw turtles and (we think) a bear. We crossed the river a few dozen times. We tried and didn't like Jagermeister (even over snow, which we found in the high elevations later in the trip). And we enjoyed campfires in the evenings in warm-but-not-hot April weather.
Around the first night's campfire I set the plan in motion. Over schnapps and hot chocolate we talked about love and life, about how well we got along and about shared values. I casually asked how she'd respond if I ever asked her to marry me. She said she'd say "yes," but she was equally casual. So I said "will you marry me?" She said "sure, when?" I had a date in mind and told it to her (September - a good time for honeymooning on the coast). But she still didn't think that I was at all serious. Then I pulled out the ring; she understood. And, for her, it was too late.
Fast forward now to 20 years later. In the last few years I've been getting older slides and photos scanned. I finally scanned the "engagement backpack trip" photos. I did this in preparation for this upcoming Young family backpack which will take us down Manzana Creek, up The Sisquoc River, and all the way around The Hurricane Deck. This time there will be four of us. And we'll have the 20-year old photos along. At minimum we'll try to find and take photos of four at the campsite where "Mom" and "Dad" got engaged. We'll also try to find some of the other places along the way.
This Tuesday Katie, Tricia and I are finally getting together with Bob Walton to do Costanoan at Pinnacles West Side (after four years of trying to plan it and getting stumped by the weather). I'll likely do a trip report, and so it's time to get the engagement trip photos off Flickr and onto here, before they get pushed back too far.
I expect that the shock value will be fun: photos of Vicki and I when we were just kids. Where have the two decades gone?
And so, in no particular order, and ready for a companion "20 years later" set to come, the engagement backpacking trip photos:
Vicki on the first day, hiking down Manzana Creek:
Springtime flowers:
Looking up the Sisquoc River, past Forester's Leap, day four:
Crossing the river, day two:
Sealed ziplocks resulted in a floating dog:
Just a boy:
With his dog:
The ridge in the center distance is The Hurricane Deck:
Napping in Mormon Camp, day two:
And that's all until after dinner.
