Made it to the North Rim yesterday around 2pm. The dirt roads in here are impressively maintained, some of the best condition dirt roads I’ve been on, and they’re extensive. A complex network with countless little roads to explore. Our current site is great, though we realize we’ve been spoiled by our recent spots.
The wind was intense last night. We hiked out to a rock just before sunset and sat on the edge looking over the canyon. Steady 40mph wind, like sticking your head out a car window. The canyon is simply stunning. Vast. More lush than I was expecting, forested, with an enormous waterfall visible in the distance. We’re very close to Supai, which I’d love to visit, but that’s another year. About $450 with a permitting system and more planning than I have right now. Being this close is a little tantalizing. I’m fairly certain the waterfall we can see is in Supai. It looks like paradise.
This whole area feels deserted. Barely anybody here at all.
Today is chilly, high in the low 60s. Shannon is off on a 17 mile bike ride to scout another possible campsite. I’m staying at my practice until mid-afternoon. I made a new song a couple days ago that despite recency bias I believe is one of the best I’ve made. I want to keep building the momentum. I have to remind myself sometimes that the practice is the priority over the adventure, even when the adventures are this good.
Shannon put three potatoes in the coals last night to cook overnight. In the morning we found that something had been in there. Unwrapped them all and ate half of one. I’m setting them out again tonight with the game camera trained on them. That’s exactly why I got the thing. My first customer. I think it’s something bigger than a squirrel but smaller than a raccoon. I think one more night here should be enough to solve the mystery.
I woke up early with intense painful leg cramps again, mostly the calves but creeping up above the knee. After more conversation with Claude it sounds like I’m still magnesium deficient and need to up my dosage. I must have been really depleted because I feel I’ve had quite a lot of magnesium this past week. Yesterday I made a large batch of the electrolyte potion, 120 servings, so it’s now far simpler to mix each one. I’ve made little custom labels for everything using my sticker printer. That little thing has been handy.
Last night around sunset I noticed I was feeling a heaviness. At the time I didn’t know what it was or where it was coming from, but it was distinct. In this season of my life I feel more in tune with my mind and body than I ever have, so when this feeling arrived I noticed it like a foreign visitor coming through the door and approached it with curiosity. Sometime in the night it became clear. I had taken in a little news yesterday. The recent geopolitical events. A deep sadness for the world and our country, for what everything is going through right now.
What I find interesting, as an observer of my own experience, is how the feeling seemed to bubble up from somewhere away from my conscious mind, from the body or the unconscious, and then made its way through. I’ve gotten better at not pushing such feelings away. I’ve learned to let them wash over me completely, and with a little time they pass. If you avoid feeling them they come back to bite you eventually. The sadness, I realize, is a perfectly reasonable and sane response to what’s happening out there. It means something is working right.