- Some art idealizes and some art focuses on the messiness.
And I feel drawn to portray the messiness.
I'm most interested in the human drama.
That's always where I wanna start is the eyes;
which is where the expression starts,
which is where the emotion is.
Finding the moments where my characters are trapped by their
own humanity is one of my favorite things.
I think the overall message is that humans are absurd,
and it's okay.
We're all in this murky soup together,
and so to have my work impact someone’s day,
I try to really remember that that's the greatest part.
My name is Kendra.
I'm a cartoonist,
and I'm on the Pacific Crest Trail
hiking for five and a half months.
My husband and I are on a journey from
the border of the United States
with Mexico to the border of Canada.
We've gone through desert, and mountains, and snow,
and rivers, and forest and lava rock.
- If you're stuck in the back country, in the snow,
with her, she can map and compass her way out of anywhere.
She's walked about 1,820 miles
in the last four months or so,
and pretty much dragged me along.
- (Kendra) Gone through two pairs of shoes.
On my third.
- (Evan) She's incredibly smart, and funny,
and remarkably driven.
- I've almost filled up two sketchbooks,
which feels like a good amount of work
for the amount of time that I've been on the trail.
I have a third one on the way.
I was hoping that walking the trail
would focus me more on the scenery,
but I still am drawn to drawing the people.
And drawing the contradiction of, you know,
you're in a beautiful spot and it's amazing and
one should be full of awe and reverence.
And one is still annoyed at their husband
for not telling us where the water was.
Every part of the trail is beautiful,
but there are some that are more beautiful than others.
Tomorrow, finally, we're gonna get
out of the trees a little bit,
and actually get to see Crater Lake.
Crater Lake is supposed to be just gorgeous.
One of those sorta crown jewels
that you just get to walk along.
You good with taking some time
when we get up there so I can draw?
- Yeah.
Um, get some coffee from the cafe?
- Get some coffee.
Eat some snacks.
- Eat some snacks.
- (Kendra) Along the trail there are the people
who are not hiking the trail,
but who are helping out hikers.
We call them trail angels.
- Can't believe it's beer and fruit.
- And one thing that they do for
hikers is provide trail magic.
Any delightful thing that sorta helps the hikers along.
- Cheers my lady.
- Cheers!
- To us.
- All the way to California.
Man, we're thankful for them.
No hiker I know has ever turned down a cold beer.
We come across this amazing trail magic, and I'm like,
ah, unlabeled weird thing you add water to.
Let's find out what it is.
Drawing a cartoon about a life experience,
which is what I'm doing on the trail,
you are the architect of the experience and the memory.
I mean a trip like this is such a extended metaphor,
which escapes no one, right?
You're going on the physical journey,
and you're also going on the internal journey.
I think we're almost there.
Da, da, da, da, da, da, da!
Nice!
Can we jump in it?
- Yeah, there's a trail down.
- Oh, nice.
To get to really interesting ideas
you have to let time not dictate you.
You have to have a certain amount of freedom.
It's beautiful, and it's very simple.
Your only goal is to move forward everyday.
I've just gotten to the point where drawing
is part of the way I interact with the world,
and how I think through my own experiences.
Being awake and alive everyday makes
me wanna interact with a piece of paper also.
I mean I’ve just put myself in the most
beautiful place I can imagine.
That's kind of the goal is to have as much of this as possible.
This is the great shakeup that then I
get to digest for a long time.
I think after I'm off the trail
I'll look through everything that I've done,
and sort of decide where I want it to live.
So that it can have a life of
its own outside of my sketchbook.
I'm looking forward to getting back into my routine.
Do that more practiced discovery.
I bet after this trip I'll be satiated
for at least a couple months.
I bet it'll be a little while before
I start pestering Evan about our next adventure.