This woman who had grown up in Hachita and said that when she moved here as a little girl
She felt like oh my gosh
I've done moved to hell and the devil doesn't even live here, but with us dry and as desolate as it is you know?
it's just
something completely different than
I've ever lived in so
you know it is enjoyable to see something completely different and to just
You know have to adapt to the conditions that you're put in
A little game of "find the spigot"! Because we're hoping that's not where we get water from
It'll do though
A note in ...gahooks... says it is in the enclosure, so...
I see no spigots, I see no way into the enclosure
What in the world? This is the most enclosed of enclosures I've ever seen...
Aaron said he just wants water right now
Huh after all that, here's the spigot like huntin' Easter Eggs
You're real good at that!
I am pretty good at that!
Ended up getting this floppy old hat while I was in town at
Dollar General they really didn't have the greatest selection, so you know I got what was more
functional I guess then than some of the others but
Function over fashion, I guess, but anyway. Yeah, the umbrella. It's just too windy for a lot of times
I definitely don't want to ditch the umbrella though even though
It's eight ounces because I have instant shade whenever I want it and even if it's windy
If I sit down and kind of put the umbrella on top of me
You know I can more or less control it in the wind and I get shade which is
Not very common out here. I know I've said it a couple of times now, but
Seriously, if I had a red lens on this phone
tell me that it wouldn't look pretty much like you would imagine Mars - because seriously...
This is an example of where your trekking pole becomes a snake poker/checker!
I reckon this water source was made just for us
I don't like these things but I feel bad watching them die, so...
Watching him sting me now to show his appreciation! Crazy wasps!
Go and get off of there!
Alright, here we go.
Mmmm. It's like I'm drinking water and eating a steak at the same time! That's not true...it actually tastes fine.
Okay better than plastic water or town water? Honestly...yes!
There goes a dust devil
dang
So that's what it was because we felt the sandblast, so we got sand blasted
I wish that I had my phone up when it happened
But I didn't and it was like literally
this big blast - I don't know how to explain it.
but my sock went away,
Perk's hat went away, and it felt like
Our life, our lives, were gonna end.
That little sign in the saddle is where the trail goes... starting to see a little bit of elevation.
What is it? What is that thing? It's not food, huh? You're disappointed?
No you can't eat my phone
Well leave it to me to be distracted by cows and not realize that the trail turned up
into the brush back there and instead I was trying to capture video and pictures of cows but
kind of glad it have in this gravel road ends up connecting back to the trail so haven't cost myself too many miles or
too much time but I ran into
The nicest couple they owned this ranch here and their names are Lindy and Ed
But his nickname or as he says trail name is Bimbo, and if you're a Jim Reeves fan. You'll understand
why that took us into a conversation of old country music
But they came up and caught me having a conversation with their cows and they're like you know you're off trail right?
But go figure Lindy's trying to get into the world of
Vlogging and maybe blogging about things that go on here at the ranch and their lives
So I don't know it was just kind of cool to run into them and talk to them about some of that and I know
I say it over and over, but it's true
It's just the folks that you meet out on a thru-hike can just be so cool whether that's
Fellow hikers or just you know people who live locally. So I'm just saying if you want to meet some cool
Folks you might want to try doing a thru-hike, and you know chasing some cows
That's pretty ominous looking...
It is!
You're stuck
Hey
You did our biggest miles yesterday, I think it was about 16 and a half
So we only have about 10 to Lordsburg today. The wind hasn't been too terrible the past
couple days
You know we've actually been able to sleep at night
But I will say that it does get kind of like mentally exhausting. You know you can't hear very well
You got to yell to each other
When you take a break you got to worry about stuff flying away from you
and, know it just gets tiring getting sandblasted
the dust blowing in your eyes and nose
Can't see nothing for hair flying in your face. You know, but it's just part of it, and that'll make us appreciate
Later in the trail when there isn't as much wind. I know some of y'all are gonna suggest
mics to me to use
So that it's not so windy, and actually I had one that I was trying
Didn't work out. It was it was like glitching, so I've got another one coming in the mail to Lordsburg
So hopefully when I talk there won't be so much ....
1.4 miles to go...
So we took a nice zero and
Thank goodness. It's a good time because the winds weren't getting up to like 60 miles per hour supposedly and
So we kind of hit out of the wind I mean we can't hide from all of it
But you know if you're in town and want to take a day then
60 mile per hour windy day is a good time to do it. Head to the post office to
forward some stuff and maybe mail some stuff home and
My mom sent me in my old tripod back because the new gecko pod just didn't have the little ball joint to adjust
Swapping that out
I'm gonna pick up some stuff from the Dollar General and then we'll be back into the wilderness again
There are attack dogs in Lordsburg!
Git him! Git him!
It's breathing hard
Yeah, you know, it could barely walk
Hear it breathing? It's up in the shade. What do you do for it?
It makes me like, I wish I knew who owned this ranch. Yeah
So we were walking along, minding our business
Going back to the trail and we find this little calf that is out here
and there are no other cows around at all and
It was kind of tucked away hidden in the shade, so
Luckily, I got in touch with the couple that I by chance ran into and met the other day
And they knew who owned this property
Which is what I was hoping would happen and they gave us their number and that man is coming out here to meet us now
On his horse so that we can show him the missing calf
So it turns out they think that that
cows mama left him for one reason or another. So it's actually good
that we called we weren't overreacting so I'm just glad that I
ended up running into
The folks that I did before that
their son owns Chestnut
So like what are the chances you know I took a wrong path, ran into the people who owned that property
was able to contact them to find out who owned this property, and let them know that you know there was a
calf in trouble, so that's pretty cool and
So there's not supposed to be a water source for 15 miles, but he told us where one of his
Windmills is that's got some water so that?
We can fill up before that 15 mile one
I'm just glad that we were in the right place at the right time to let him know that that calf was
actually in trouble
Which one of you sorry heifers?
Abandoned your child
When we got to the windmill
Notice that the pipe that flows into the big tank that feeds the trough
Was sticking outside of the big tank. I thought that was a little wonky.
So I texted the owner of the property again and was like hey
Not sure if this is how it's supposed to be, sorry to bother you again,
But the pipe from the windmill is sticking out of the tank, so it's not flowing into the tank
Do you want it like that, or because it's flowing on to the ground and just wasting water
Which I imagine then the desert isn't a good thing. So sure enough they said no
they want it pointing it back in, and they said, see this is what CDT hikers normally leave us with, and
So I just wanted to
Make a point you know first of all the CDT doesn't even pass right by that windmill
So you know as far as I know they don't have permission to use that
trough as a water source and
So it's sad that people
Go off on people's property and then mistreat their property so
If you're thinking about thru' hiking, you've got to think about you know the landowners that allow the CDT hikers to be there
and you've got to treat things like you would want your property treated because
Otherwise you might not be welcome anymore, and they might not be so nice anymore
And you gotta think about folks coming behind you, so if you get to use something, leave it how you found it
All right, so
Bear with me a minute
But you know sometimes when you're on a trail like this you have to find ways to
Make it interesting and kind of play a little game
So I've been doing this game of poke the cow turd because there's like a plethora of cow turds out here.
and
I've been doing the you know poke the cow patty and see if it's still wet because it's so dry and windy out here that
I mean I have to imagine like five minutes after the turd leaves the cow's butt that it's dry and like a rock and some
Of them will be real deceiving like some are so obvious that they're dry and then some are you know they look like they should?
Be wet and I kept poking them
And I kept saying it would be surprising to find one that was actually
Wet you know like a prize like finding a prize well today is my birthday
And I was telling Aaron that you know the biggest birthday present I could get today was finding in a wet cow turd and
We just found one and the funny part of all this is
Were bee-lining for that windmill that has the water that we had permission to from
The man who owns the calf that we just saved so if we hadn't saved the calf
After running into Chestnuts people because that's the only way that was possible then we would have never found the wet cow turd now
So it's pretty incredible
It's all coming around full circle!
I'm not a professional here...
No! You're learning, this is great!
Happy birthday to you,
I just turned 32, and with it being my 32nd birthday, I've really been thinking a lot about my biological father.
He passed away when he was 32 years old and I was pretty much a baby
So I never got the chance to know him
I know that we have three things in common for sure, and that's that he was an engineer
He loved his dog, and he loved the outdoors. As I get older I found myself
You know wondering who is the person that makes up the other half of me?
And I think that being in nature and knowing that he loved it is something that helps me feel connected to him
And I've been told that if he was alive
I would basically have to beg him not to thru hike with me
And I think that because he passed away at such a young age, that probably had a huge influence on me to change the way
That I live my life and not to go by the cookie cutter design and do exactly what society expects of me
But to live my life how I want to. So I think that one of my biggest goals other than hiking the CDT is
making sure that I make it to age 33 for him and
Whatever years I have beyond that to live every bit of it to the fullest
You be