10 and 1 and 101.4
101.4 isn’t a radio station. Well, I am sure it is a radio station somewhere in America, but in our case, it refers to the number of miles we hiked since we set out on this trip. After hiking all the trails associated with Devil’s Tower, this is the number, and though it does not equal the 126 that we racked up in a month last summer, I feel good about this number. We’ve pushed ourselves a little, and we’ve also listened to our bodies and looked for shorter distances when either one of us, or both of us, needed a break.
Friday morning we did 4.9 miles, from the campground, up part of the Red Beds trail (the entirety of which we did yesterday), and then up to the Joyner Ridge Trail. We saw fewer than ten people even though thousands visit this monument each day. Though there are not a ton of trails in Devil’s Tower, once you leave the visitor’s center and the paved loop trail around the base of the tower, it’s quiet. While I welcome the solitude, it bums me out that so many people are missing out.
Come Sunday, it will be one month since we hit the road—that’s the one in the title. It has gone fast thus far! The Minnie has logged some miles, and we are settling into life in 100ish square feet. We are feeling pretty dialed in, as far as Minnie Life goes, though we know we still have things to learn, understand and discover. After all, the longest we’ve lived on the road is one month, and that was in a minivan, so the weeks ahead will be new and fun and challenging and interesting. There’s more to see and more to do, and certainly more to write about. More pictures—that’s definite!
The ten in the title refers to our ten year wedding anniversary on July 16. If you are scratching your head and thinking, wait, I thought they celebrated eight years last month, you are not losing your mind. It’s both actually: 8 years legal in June and 10 years illegal in July! Now that we are legal, we refer to the first wedding as our illegal one, both to be funny and to make a point, an important point. When we first decided to commit our lives to each other, it was not recognized by our government. In spite of that fact, we thought it important to pledge our lives to each other in front of our family and friends, so that we could in turn count on their support and guidance and love in the years ahead. That was an incredible day ten years ago! Alanna was worried I wasn’t going to turn up—she said when she left the house with friends I was a disturbing shade of green! I was nervous, of course, getting married is a big deal, a huge deal, even if it was not legal at the time.
I’m grateful to have two anniversaries to celebrate, to have taken the plunge ten years ago, to have worked hard in partnership with Alanna to make this relationship a thriving one that is filled with love and kindness and compassion. We’ve been through some challenging times together, as any couple has, and it feels great to be where we are today and to be on this great adventure, to have had the courage to leave our friends and family in San Francisco, our jobs, everything we know, and to be open to what lies ahead. That’s love my friends, and I am lucky to have found it, or maybe it found me. Either way, it’s a tremendous life!