Day 92

First a story: We were hiking back to the trailhead, where our car was parked, when we met him. We slowly came to a stop as we approached each other.

"Is the journey far?" he asked in a slight German accent. His translation had taken a rather metaphysical quality.

"No," I said with an embarrassed grin. We had camped at a spot just out of sight of our parked car in the wide desert valley. We had gorged ourselves on sleep and food.

He wore sneakers and drank from reused plastic water bottles. According to the dust that permeated his bandana he had been out for a few days, but his beard said that he had been out longer. His sun spectacles seemed as if they were a permanent fixture his face.

He wished us well and continued on his way.

For the duration of the trip, and the drive back home, the mythos surrounding The German grew only larger. In a flight of fancy, we ascertained that he was composed not of matter, but was rather a light emanation generated by string resonance, and that he thought in harmonics rather than words. Conclusions: 1. The German was a manifestation of the vibrating life force imbued in all living creatures. 2. We had completed our vision quest. 3. The German had been our spirit guide.

Now another story: Today I received the first two of a total of five hours of training. Tomorrow morning I receive the rest as I am hastily pressed into service. It makes me feel very Red Army.

After that, I get my license to kill... invasive, non-native plant species, as a part of the Strawberry Creek Restoration Program, under the auspices of our illustrious leader, Tim Pine (I wish I were named after a conifer). Our trainings had no shortage of war metaphors, the most colorful of which drew on the fact that our poorly-funded program relies on networks of independent cells (of which I will soon be a leader), leading to a comparison with al-Qaeda. That got some laughs. And then he continued to plow on.

As long as I'm planting seeds and not bombs.