Memorable Walks

Of the many walks, hikes and marches that I have taken, a few stand out. The first was when I was about 12 years old. My brother Jerry, my sister Barbara and possibly our younger sister Chris, took a walk down the beach from Wilderness State Park on the Straits of Mackinac. For some reason we misjudged the length of the walk and were gone for hours. Our parents actually called the Park Rangers to look for us. We finally stumbled back into camp about six hours later, hungry and tired. My attempts to calm the younger children, always began with the phrase "it's just around the corner". After a while they became quite annoyed with me saying that.

The second was the march I took in the Air Force in basic training. It was May in Texas in the middle of a record heat wave. Temperatures reached 105f. One day we were lined up in the sun for vaccinations. The Air Force was using air guns, where they gave us several shots at once. If you flinched, you could get hurt and bleed. Some guys were passing out. This took at least an hour for our Squadron to be inoculated. We then marched five miles to a non air conditioned classroom where we took the aptitude tests that determined our job placements for the remainder of our time in the Air Force. Many guys took the opportunity to catch a short nap. We then marched back five miles to the barracks. That's military intelligence for you.

Today was also memorable. The hike was on the Pacheco Valley trail, otherwise known as Big Rock Trail. The five miles of the trail went up and down the mountain that is directly behind our condo. I thought it might be a somewhat strenuous trail that wound around the woods a little, and ended up in our courtyard. Little did I realize we were headed up to the top of the mountain. We were dressed appropriately but didn't bring a map or the GPS, so we had no idea how far we were going. As I looked ahead and saw the trail winding around, I did realize we were going to be walking a long way. At one point I did wonder if we had miscalculated where we would end up because of the direction the path took. My fear was we would end up in Marinwood, which was on the other side of the mountain. As we were ascending one of the highest points, we were passed by a guy on a mountain bike! About ten minutes later, he headed back down, and we stopped him to ask where in the Hell we were. He assured us that the trail split a short ways up the hill, and that if we kept to the left we would end up back in our neighborhood. If we went right, we would end up on the other side of the mountain in Marinwood. We soldiered on up the trail.

He was correct. The total walk took two hours and fifteen minutes, we walked five miles and ascended and descended 1000 ft. The hot tub by the community pool was a welcome reward.

Who knew we were staying so close to such a walk, with such a magnificent view of the Bay? We did forget the camera, so pictures are from my phone, but they did come out OK.
Dan