Aerosmith song running through my head this morning. Actually, yesterday, from about 1 pm on, this song was in my head, as I was trying to finish all the things (I didn’t finish, in case you were wondering. I can just about teach what I need to today, although I need to make one assignment and one video, maybe two, before school starts. At 9 AM.). I did manage to do almost no school on Saturday…Friday was a bit hit or miss. I had plans to get some posts done before school and then leave by 9 AM, but there was a Zoomergency (an emergency involving Zoom, not a zoo) and I spent that time trying to get my guest teacher access to my online classes. So has the right eye stopped twitching? It has not. It probably will not until June 18. I’m trying.

I drove over 3 hours, through traffic, construction, up a mountain road, and then up a dirt road…

2.3 miles, where the PCT crosses, I found the man. He was kinda dirty and a little smelly (actually not too bad, considering), and has lost a lot of weight.

We ate some food and checked into our AirBnb, which overlooked an airstrip (it was kinda cool watching the little planes land and take off). The place we ate had Marilyn Monroe in the bathroom…

Like you do.

He showered and started laundry and we just sort of hung out together, because it’s hard to have full conversations via text and even worse via Garmin, because there’s a time lag, and you’re never really sure what conversation you’re on when you get an answer sometimes. So we needed to catch up and clarify.

Our AirBnb had a nosy neighbor…

Yup. That’s a goat.

The man did some planning and spacing out and talking and I did some cutting out of the new art quilt…

Dinner on the first night included these…

OK, we didn’t actually eat those. But laughed at them. Saturday, we drove to all the places to try to find him food (four places for that) and pants that were smaller that might stay up (no success there). We didn’t go to the lake or do any touristy things. We pretty much hung out. Like back in the day when you first started dating. Just hang out on the couch and talk and watch videos.

And for me, cut more stuff out. The flesh is all done. I’m down in the Earth stuff, which is a lot of little pieces and will take a while.

We went to dinner early, so we could hang out (some more) in the jacuzzi, which had a tad too much chlorine in it…

OK, a shit-ton too much chlorine. But it was warm and nice.

And then the next morning, we got up really early and had breakfast and saw three bald eagles fly over us as we walked back to the house, and then drove up this damn dirt road again and saw three deer. He hasn’t seen larger wildlife…just heard it. Ironic that we saw those in the car. I’m sure he’ll see them in the future.

It’s pretty up here…

Some part of me would love to just drop my job and get the hell out of this house and follow, but I can’t. I’m glad he’s doing it, because although he has bad days, low moments, shitty stuff that happens, in general, he’s finding peace in his head and trying to figure out his future. All good things. All big things.

He was smiling just before this. I swear. I think he was feeling the weight of 5 dinners and 4 liters of water in his pack and thinking about that.

And then he took off up the path. Both of us were sad about that part, but that is a good chunk of this trip, missing each other. Not much we can do about that part but keep trying to meet up (not an easy task as he gets further away, for sure). We have tentative plans for 3 weeks from now, and then it will be after school gets out. I’ll have some more leeway then, but the drives get significantly longer.

See, that’s the PCT face…he’s looking good, looking happy, enjoying (for the most part) the trail…and the trip. After I dropped him off, he did 14.8 miles and ended up here.

It’s a good thing…a hard thing for both of us, but good.

Meanwhile, I have to catch up on work this week (ugh) and keep cutting out pieces (not so ugh). I’m still tired…went to bed early last night and still don’t feel rested. Not great.

The animals were glad to see me back, though, so that’s a thing. I laid on the floor with the cats and watched birds for a bit with them.

Yeah. I know. Weird. I like seeing things from their viewpoint sometimes though.

OK, buried in work today. My guest teacher did fine, except he marked everyone absent who was actuallyin class, so I’m trying to go through that mess. Hopefully making it to the art stuff tonight though. We’ll see. And missing the man. Sigh. There’s a lot of that going on.