Ozark Walk-About

Author’s note:  This is one of the first “long” pieces that I ever wrote. I believe this is from 2002. It was shortly after 9/11 and a job lost due to a corporate merger.  It was not the best of times to be looking for work in the IT field as literally every other programmer in America was doing the same thing.

I actually have it on another website of mine, but I wanted to bring it over to here to have my scribblings gathered together.


A 9 Day Walk-About in the Ozark Wilderness

Pseudo-philosophical babblings

Backpacking is occasionally just plain damn hard work, which sometimes makes it hard for me to explain my fascination with it.

In April when Jeff and I hiked the Grand Canyon we had gotten ourselves in reasonable shape by several training hikes in the Ozarks and Ouachitas.  If one can really call trekking through such beauty a training exercise.  Outside of the crowded coasts or someplace where it snows 13 months of the year, I cannot think of too many places in America more awe inspiring than the Ozarks.  I did not want conditioning to be an issue when I hiked to one Nature’s masterpieces, the Grand Canyon.

I usually walk and work out regularly, but with the way the job search has gone I have allowed depression to get hold of me.  Those activities have gone by the way side in favor of Gilligan’s Island reruns.  Go ahead, give me the opening premise, and I will give you the plot line.

One afternoon as I lay on the couch fantasizing Continue reading “Ozark Walk-About”