Backpacking 101 - Part 1

High school, senior year, a friend and I are in the school library talking about another friend that was going to go on some adventure to Kansas. We decided then and there to do something just as bold. We decided that we would go backpacking in the Smoky Mountains.

A couple of important facts to note. Neither one of us had ever been to the Smokies. We had never backpacked before either. The sum of my hiking experience, away from my forest preserve across the street in Northern Illinois, was reading adventure stories in Outdoor Life and Field and Stream magazines.

But it sounded cool. We would be walking across the entire park on a level, mountain top trail, the Appalachian Trail. And I had all the gear, like clod hopper hiking boots and wool socks, to go along with a pack that I bought at a Sears store.

My friend was a soccer player, a fanatical weight lifter, and a health food junkie. I was comparatively frail and ate food like pizza burgers. But we made the commitment to go and he gave up going to the senior prom so that he could afford to buy new tires for the Plymouth Valiant we were to drive there in. On the other hand, I mink oiled my clod hopper boots as my big preparation for the trip.

So in June of 1978, we set off and drove 15 hours straight from the suburbs of Chicago all the way to Great Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee. We were in awe of the mountains as we approached the park and since we had no place to stay, we slept in the car at the ranger station. The next morning, we informed a ranger of our intentions to cross the park in 7 days and off we went to park the car at a nearby trail head.

What happened next was what happens when reality meets inexperience.

Did you know that it is very humid and muggy in Tennessee in June? Did you also know that hiking boots that are a couple of sizes too big when worn with wool socks will enable you to grow the biggest blisters on your heals that you have ever seen? Did you know that hiking trails in the Smoky's go up and down and are never level? Did you know that when one of your backpack straps keeps breaking, you have to stop and try and put it back together again while nats and other flying insects attack you? Sounds fun, doesn't it?

Long story short, I was 17 years old and under the stress of the real world, wanted to go back home asap. I told my friend that he could keep going, that I would just hitchhike my way back home. Like I said, I was 17.

He cut short his trip as well and we drove all the way back home like we were escaping from East Germany. It was a devastating blow to my hunger for adventure and my yearning to explore and I would not try something like that again for a long, long time. But I did try again.

For my 30th birthday celebration, I chose to go backpacking in Grand Teton National Park. This time, I was prepared. Prepared for everything right up to the point when we hoisted our full packs onto our backs and nearly fell over from the weight. A friend of mine and I looked at each other and said, "We are gonna die."

To be continued.

Mirror, Mirror on the JEEP

Never let anyone tell you that you can't do something...

On June 9th of last year, Georgina and I went kayaking on Horsetooth Reservoir in Fort Collins, Colorado. After a fun day of kayaking, while I was loading the kayaks onto the roof of the Jeep, I accidentally bumped the kayak that was already loaded with the other one and it fell off the other side. It made a plastic drum like sound as it bounced off the asphalt in the parking lot, but I thought at the time that was about it. Wrong. I soon discovered that the kayak had clipped the drivers side mirror of the Jeep on the way down and it was hanging there like a broken branch of a tree. Not good.

At the time, it looked to me like the mirror had just popped out of place, but upon further review, one of the connecting posts got sheared off from the impact of the kayak. The rest of the mirror was fine and I figured maybe I could just glue it or something.

Well, it was then I began my quest to ask around and figure out what the best method was to fix my mirror. In the meantime, I affixed the mirror with duct tape, but it soon melted and peeled off, so I went searching for another solution.

The guy at the hardware store looked at me like I was crazy. I took him out into the parking lot to show him, but he was clueless. The guy at the hobby store literally ran me out of his store when I told him I needed some good glue to fix my mirror. He gasped "your automobile mirror, out you go, it can't be done". I visited a Jeep dealership where they have an auto body shop and they tried to sell me a new mirror for $475.00 instead. Say what? I had looked on-line and found a new mirror for like $30, but I was told my mirror was special and I needed the expensive one, and besides, they weren't going to put somebody else's part on for me. Nice.

The saga continued. The more I talked about it, the more people weighed in on the problem and told me it couldn't be done. That is until one of Georgina's friends at work told her husband and they graciously went out and bought me some form of industrial strength epoxy. I applied it to the mirror and pushed on it to hold it in place for like 15 minutes to let the epoxy set up. I let the Jeep sit 24 hours with a ladder under the mirror for support and by golly it worked. The electronics and everything were fine, until...

On August 10th, we had just finished a whitewater raft trip in Buena Vista, Colorado and were sitting in the Jeep at a Subway restaurant when a rather large woman got out of her car and without looking proceeded to bump into the mirror and once again render it dangling. This woman didn't even acknowledge her clumsiness or couldn't feel her accident due to her heft and went on her way leaving my mouth a gasp at this delusion of the gene pool. I then drove over 100 miles, over a mountain pass and everything, with that mirror hanging at a 90 degree angle, and made it back to Breckenridge, Colorado to fight another day.

The next morning, I knew what I had to do, go to a ski shop. These guys can fix anything. So, I went to a local ski shop and told them that they wouldn't see a problem like me all day and they helped me. They gave me some awesome epoxy they use for skis. I pushed on the mirror in the parking lot to hold it in place for like 15 minutes and it seemed to hold. Later that afternoon, I put it to the ultimate test and drove on the roughest 4-wheel drive road I have ever driven on, and it held. Yay.

Yay that is until last night...

Last night, in the comfort of my own garage, someone or something, maybe even Bigfoot, bumped into the mirror and this morning, I found it dangling once again. Mad, yes. Discouraged, a little. Defeated, never! As Rocky Balboa said to his manager in the movie "Rocky", "I ain't going down no more!"

That mirror will function again, you'll see. Until then, never let anyone tell you that you can't do something...

Gold Fever

There is a show on TV called "Gold Rush Alaska" that is the story of 6 families from Oregon risking it all in the pursuit of finding gold on a claim in Alaska. This claim supposedly has $15,000,000 worth of gold on it. All they have to do is find it and get it out of the ground.

Fast forward 5 months into their adventure and we find that they have extracted a total of 2.75 ounces of gold so far...worth about $3,500.

Now using their math, 8 ounces of gold is worth $10,000, so 80 ounces would be worth $100,000, 800 ounces would be worth $1,000,000, 8,000 ounces would be worth $10,000,000 and 12,000 ounces would be worth $15,000,000.

Now I hated those story problems in math when I was a kid, but let's pose the question. At their current rate, how long will these gold miners take to realize their claims supposed potential of $15,000,000?

If it takes 5 months to get 2.75 ounces, that is .55 ounces per month. Take .55 ounces and multiply it by 12 to get the ounces per year rate. That comes to 6.6 ounces per year. At this rate, it will take over 181 years to realize their claims potential of $15,000,000.

Those Oregon families will have to work that claim for the next 6 generations to get their gold! Another reality TV show exposed!

If you grew up in the Chicago area and you are about my age, you remember The Blizzard of 1967. It is the snowstorm we measure all others against. 23 inches of snow fell with drifts up to 8 feet deep.

I was 6 years old at the time and I remember helping my mom bake cookies while it was snowing. The wind was blowing off the lake from the northeast and the snow was piling up on the window ledges outside of our living room. I remember it snowed and it snowed and it snowed. We had to clear the front door of snow for fear of being trapped inside. And we didn't dare venture outside until it was over.

When it was over, we went outside and were amazed at what we saw. The snow had drifted up as high as the garage roof. We immediately got busy digging a tunnel around the garage and up against the south side of the house on the patio. We had never seen such an opportunity for adventure. We played outside until our clothes got soaked. We then came in and let them dry out in our pantry where the furnace was. After they dried, we went out again. I don't remember much more...

I do remember though seeing a picture of my grandparents years later in front of their house in Edgebrook digging out after the great blizzard of '67. My grandfather's name was John Nielsen, but my grandma called him Jack and he was 76 years old at the time. There they were shoveling snow over their heads.

Little did they know at the time that that would be my grandfather's last great snowstorm. He would die of throat cancer a little over a year later. But remembering that picture, their smiles as they proudly battled all that mother nature could dish out, is one I'll never forget.

So today, 44 years later, I sit and watch the Weather Channel as they forecast a major winter storm heading for Chicago. Will it be "an Oklahoma hooker", a nickname for a storm that curls up from the southwest and wraps around the windy city? Will it be the latest "Storm of the Century"? We shall see and if it is, memories will be made.

The Fall of the Texas Empire

Remarkable.

The Texas Longhorn football program from mid-October of 2004 until mid-September of 2010 was quite simply remarkable. They posted a 68-8 record during that time. They played in back to back Rose Bowls winning both against Michigan and USC. They beat Ohio State in a Fiesta Bowl. They won the National Title in 2005 and lost the National Title game in 2009.

After a loss to Oklahoma in 2004, Texas won their next 20 games. They came down to earth with back to back 10-3 seasons that were followed up with 12-1 and 13-1 seasons. They were 3-0 in 2010 and then the program suddenly crashed and burned.

Texas won only 2 of their remaining 9 games last season resulting in a losing season and no bowl game. The fall of the Longhorn empire looked similiar to a cyclist cracking. His legs push the pedals around, but they have no power left in them. Texas bonked.

What now? Will I look back on these recent teams like Texas fans used to about the teams of the 60's? Will it take 35 years to win another National Title? Gosh, I hope not.

As far as I know, football is not an elective at Texas, so please get rid of the track guys and the other proven losers Mack. I do not want to hear anymore NFL potential crap about players. Prove it to us on the field or please get off of it for goodness sake.

Mack you better wake up and smell the coffee or you'll be wondering what happened to your job like we are wondering what happened to our team this past season. Texas is one of the best programs in the country and should be easy to turn around with all the advantages it has.

Mack, the question is do you have it in you to do what is necessary for the good of the program or not? Time will tell.

Memories of Christmas

The Lionel train that chugged up the trestle tracks on its way to sudden impact with the living room wall when the kid at the controls sped into a turn that couldn't be navigated at high speed...unpurpose.

Hiding under the Christmas tree, buried under the presents on Christmas Eve...

Watching the neighbors 4-color wheel rotate on their artificial tree through our living room window...

Hoping for snow for a white Christmas...

Realizing one Christmas that we didn't have a fireplace and wondering how Santa delivered the toys...

Listening to Christmas albums on the RCA stereo cabinet turn table...

Wrapping Christmas presents after midnight mass...

Driving to Chicago on Christmas Eve to visit my Mom's 2nd cousin who we called Aunt Jeanine and Uncle Frank...

Looking at Sears and Wards catalogues to make our wish list for presents from Santa...

Making a Christmas card holder out of a Reader's Digest magazine...

Playing hockey in our kitchen...

Being told not to bring a toy car to church on Christmas because you could lose it and then, you guessed it, losing it...

Having to wait until after dinner on Christmas night to open presents at one of our grandparents houses...

Sliding down carpeted stairs on our butts as we played guess-which-hand-the-penny-is-in game with our Uncle Conrad...

Driving our mom crazy by turning off all the lights to see the Christmas tree lit up in the dark...

Sitting under the Christmas tree and staring at the patterns of color reflected on the ceiling...

Saving money and depositing it in the bank for Christmas presents...

Not having to go to school the whole week before Christmas and the whole week after Christmas...

Rolling the TV stand into the kitchen so we could watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas" during dinner...

Feeling like the air got let out of your tires when you realized Christmas afternoon that it was over, for this year...

Merry Christmas.

4 is the Magic Number

My stepdaughter came up to me and said, "Give me a number." I said, okay, 7. She said 7 is 5, 5 is 4, and 4 is the magic number. Say what?

She said give me another number. I said 10. She said 10 is 3, 3 is 5, 5 is 4, and 4 is the magic number.

My mind took the bait and I was off to the races in problem solving mode.

Numbers. Since I have used math most of my career, my mind was programmed to think in terms of numbers. What was this riddle 4 is the magic number? Do I add the numbers together and then divide by something and then subtract by something else?

Any number I would give her, she would think momentarily and then rattle off a chain of seemingly random numbers that culminated in the phrase "and 4 is the magic number." My brain kicked into overdrive, but I was not able to solve this riddle.

Seeing my dismay, she then gave me an invaluable hint about the riddle. She said that it had nothing to do with math. Say what?

Okay. Back up the truck and dump out the garbage cluttering my mind. Suddenly, the answer to the riddle popped into my head. With math out of the equation, I quickly formulated that if I counted the letters in the word that represents the number, I came up with the answer to the riddle.

For example, the number 7 is spelled s-e-v-e-n. That's 5 letters. The number 5 is spelled f-i-v-e. That's 4 letters... and 4 is the magic number.

Light bulb.

What if people with opposing views could find common ground by figuring out that what they were trying to communicate to one another was not getting through because of the way they were approaching the problem? In other words, what if math had nothing to do with it?

Just look at the way our government approaches problems like out of control spending and you'll see that...

...math definitely has nothing to do with it...