[Day 30] Return to Tucson

After returning home to California for some necessary events including my grandmother’s memorial service, Thanksgiving with family, initiation into a new startup venture, and three rounds of interviews for a new job, I find myself eager to return to the Arizona Trail — or any trail for that matter. I do a fair job of documenting the journeys along the trail. However, I have little record of impressions when I return civilization.

Oddly, and this is likely a personal exception, civilization observably lacks civility of any proper sort. Greed drives our hyper-sexualized social structure towards poor logic and resounding grievance. It’s a situation where I question if friends are friends, or if people act upon ulterior motive. It seems everyone’s been scared to death of dying here alone or empty handed, so much so that people’s selfishness encourages absent-minded, prideful behavior. I find myself intentionally touting a persona of irreverent mockery and practicing tactics of estrangement and disassociation. Outside of family, most interactions encourage me to head back into the woods. Maybe it’s the Southern California culture or maybe it’s my poor choice of whom or how I engage…

I’m many years from a departure into the woods, but it’s not all bleak. Both my job interviews and startup project show promising work and people. The next long-term destination is likely of the following: San Francisco Bay, San Diego, or Austin. Considering the lack of friends and connection to the culture in my current proximity, I do not oppose heading for some new hills for a time. Hopefully, the remaining miles of Arizona give insight.

I gave into an expensive, last-minute flight to Tucson, rather than the 15-hour train ride from San Diego. Touchdown in Tucson was noon local time today. Recovery of my stashed fuel canister from an empty lot near the airport was first order of business. The canister was there as I had left it. Moments after grabbing the fuel and walking from the bushes back to the road, a Prius pulled over. An older dude vaguely asked me if I wanted a ride. “Well, it depends where to,” I responded. He insisted I get in. The offer to my unsolicited need (I guess the backpack is somewhat solicitation) might seem odd, but since he wasn’t offering me any candy, I felt fine. Dennis, an ex-IBM and ex-DARPA mechatronics engineer who supposedly had a part in inventing the internet, let me direct him to the trailhead 25 minutes out of town. It was a case of a solo, older white guy as I had encountered often on the CDT. He delved into his career, occasionally providing me pointers, such as that I needed to learn IPv6 (internet protocol language). I don’t mean to take advantage of people, so I offered Dennis some cash, which he vehemently refused. I think he was on the verge of offering me up a few bills. My persona resonants with an older generation. An older soul might be needed to appreciate the endeavors of a hopeless wanderer. Plenty of my generation — even “friends” — scoff at my frivolous walks.

By 1:15pm Arizona time, I was back to the trailhead andon my way. Typically, there’s an amount of instinctual nervous energy after some time away, kind of like a caged dog who gets the zoomies upon release. On this occasion, it wasn’t so. I am no puppy anymore; I know this is where I want to be.

Trail undulated south from the town of Vail. Large desert estates sprinkled the hills. I made good time on fresh legs. Six miles in, I came across Steven, a Tucson local who lives the AZT. He was mountain biking a short section today, but Steven previously attempted full bike races of the AZT and completed section hikes of the trail in its entirety over a cumulative time frame of 15 days, 5 hours. He’s one of those wild 50-mile-a-day grinders. But, he admitted to lacking recall on much of the trail’s visuals since his section hikes included night running in the already dwindling daylight hours of a fall southbound walk.

I’m not sure what’s changed since I’ve left, but today’s background noise was that of a firing squad. I heard well over 200 gunshots, all from different parties with no instances of rapid fire. On the Colorado Plateau section, I heard maybe five or six distant shots a day. Between Pine and Tucson, I rarely heard any.

Daylight hours are a succinct ten hours — 7:15am sunrise to 5:20pm sunset. These last miles will be include many hours of darkness. I moved until 9pm tonight, conveniently capping the day’s walk at a water cache. The air has nippiness in the canyon bottoms. Unsurprisingly, I expect near-freezing or freezing temperatures night lows to the Mexican border, and daytime highs floating around 70°F. Next week, the weather predicts the Sonoran desert takes a hard turn for winter.

Signing off,

Zeppelin

“Freak on a Leash”