Shelter in Place
I had been planning to hike the PCT this year. I had gotten a real good spot in the online lottery to request permit dates to start the trail at the Mexico border -- my start date was April 21st. I mostly like my job, and in many ways I love my life here. But I knew that hiking the trail for five months would make me happy in a way that the constraints of normal life cannot. My partner would take time away from his doctoral studies to join me. And I know that there aren't many opportunities for taking out the kind of time needed for a journey like that. My partner and I had hiked a couple of months on the trail in 2016, from Idyllwild in the San Jacinto mountains to Tuolumne in Yosemite. That experience was one of the hardest things that I have done. We walked from deliberately chosen places in California, carefully chose for sentimental reasons. It made me fall in love with California again, after having been away for so many years -- a seriously misguided decision to live in...