I'm Gonna Be (1500 Miles)

I would walk 500 miles And I would walk a thousand more Just to be the man who walked fifteen hundred miles To fall down at Ben Cronin's door. Who is Ben Cronin, you may ask? He is my doppelgänger, apparently. A computer science major graduate of Princeton University who runs ultramarathons, and quit their programming job at a major international software company to end up in the tiny town of Dunsmuir, CA (in one of our cases, only for a weekend)-- a town with a population of about 1600 people and "Home of the best water on earth", if their city slogan is to be believed. Within an hour of meeting him, I asked if I could borrow some clothes. After I changed, he must have felt like he was looking into a mirror. We even use the same belt notch. How crazy is that?!?! To back up a bit, Ben is my brother-in-law's college roommate of ten years ago. At reunions a couple of months ago, they reconnected, Ben had recently moved to a PCT trail town. And I love PCT towns. We have been communicating over e-mail since then to figure out how to get together. The e-mail exchange went something like this: Ben: Looking forward to meeting you, let me know when you will be in town Roger: Same here, I should be there on July 12th. Ben: Great, see you then. ...one week later... Roger: I'm a bit ahead of schedule, I might get there as early as the 10th. Ben: Great, see you then. ...one week later... Roger: Actually, I'm a bit behind schedule now. It looks like I'll be there on the 14th. Ben: Great, see you then. ...one week later... Roger: Hey Ben, I'm in Dunsmuir now at the pizza place. Surprise, I'm here a day early (it was the 13th). Ben: I'll be there in five minutes. After getting some calories into me, we went back to his place. My next order of business was to take a shower, and since I didn't want to get back into my filthy hiking clothes, I asked him for something I could wear. It's been long enough on the trail that I don't even know if this is an inappropriate request or not. Besides being an all-around great guy, Ben also has some wonderful friends, Nathan and Nora, which we hung out with for a couple of days. After dinner, they asked if I wanted to go on a short walk with them, and their 130 pound dog. I figured, sure why not. I only went for a short twenty-two mile walk this morning to get into town. I was very happy when I found out that our definitions of 'short' were decidedly not the same. I was also very happy to find out, as far as trail angels are concerned, I had hit the proverbial mother lode. Nora is aspiring to start an ice cream company. And I love ice cream. She also makes her own waffle cones. I've never used this acronym before, but I think now is the time. OMG. I think I am going to just move into their freezer. I'd talk a bit about the actual trail, but frankly, there isn't much to say for this section. It was almost all forested. The only indication I got that I was making any progress was that every hour or two I would get to peak through the trees to see the 14,000+ foot Mt. Shasta grow little by little until it eventually was looming so large you couldn't notice anything else. I took my first zero day in a while. And I actually got a bit of time to relax, just sitting down by the river bank, picking blackberries, reading, staring off into space. You know, just relaxing. Of course, that means I'm now still up at 2a trying to get all my e-mailing done before getting back on the trail. Aunt Kathie gave me a great idea. Next blog entry will be answering any questions you have. I'll try to answer those questions about quantum physics the best I can, but your safest bet is probably just to stick with asking me about the trail. Let's hear those questions. My next mail stop will be Aug. 17th at Cascade Locks if you'd like to reach me. Roger Wolff c/o General Delivery Cascade Locks, OR 97014 -Roger Dodger