A turn or two I'll walk, to still my beating mind

PROSPERO

You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd;
Bear with my weakness; my, brain is troubled:
Be not disturb'd with my infirmity:
If you be pleased, retire into my cell
And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk,
To still my beating mind.

(The Tempest, Act IV, scene 1) 

Yes, my friends, Erin and Michael have left the great state of California and entered...

Ashland, Oregon, home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival!

Instead of going to see a play, however, they are scarfing down cheeseburgers with their trail friends, the Ashland boys. Psh.

But the good news is that their swollen feet, while still painful, are less swollen; their bee-stung bodies, while still in pain, are no longer bee-stung; and that bowel trouble that I alluded to in my last post, while always a painful lingering memory, has not returned. 

FURTHERMORE, Erin has acquired a trailname from their trail buddies Tribu and Muir Bird, two PCT hikers who like to travel up to the 30 miles a day (that's a lot). From here on out, I will refer to my sister as Jorge.

Apparently there is a perfectly logical reason for this: namely, ultramarathon runner Jorge Pacheco. The dude runs 100 miles for fun and likes to train on the PCT (also, presumably, for fun). Turns out that our dear Erin/Jorge occasionally turns into an ultramarathoner of sorts, speeding along the trail like she's out to win a race. Sometimes, though, she slows down. Way, waaaaay down. Then her trailfriends call her George.

So, congratulations, Jorge and Longlegs, on reaching Oregon! Love you guys so much.

More than halfway there!

Friends, please pardon my long absence. This is what I have been doing this summer: 

Photo credit: Kym Bernazky

From the first showing of "I wondered why," a one-woman show based on my Dad's memoirs as compiled for me by my Mom and Dad.

Here, in the other hand, is what my beloved siblings have been doing:

Photo credit: Tom Glass

So, as can see, we are all completing activities of comparable difficulty.

Here are some updates from the trail, in no particular order!

Tom/Teddy has returned to notPCT land in one piece, albiet heavily bearded, after a month and a half on the trail. I am stealing all of the photos today from his facebook page. They are stunning photos, and also, Erin and Michael don't send me photos because when they get into town they are too busy repairing their heavily traumatized feet and eating every calorie they can get their hands on to send e-mails. I have not yet talked to Tom/Teddy, but i promise a full report soon.

Photo credit: Tom Glass

Teddy, Longlegs, and Erin (no trailname yet) reached the halfway point! Annnd Legs and Erin are stiillllll in California. It's a big state. They just passed through Castella, CA this weekend:

Almost to Oregon...

With Tom gone, it seems that the intrepid Hanleyettes have either started to run into more mishaps, or they have fewer heartwarming stories to tell and are therefore telling the truth about how hard it is to walk thousands of miles. Michael was stung by a bunch of bees. Erin's toes swelled up so much that they broke through the tops of her shoes. There was an unfortunate poop episode that i hope to make a claymation movie about soon. Some packages failed to arrive on time. The Hanleyettes march on.

Photo credit: Tom Glass

Photo credit: Tom Glass

I should hear from them next weekend, but in the meantime, know that they are safe and (more or less) sound. And at least the view is good from wherever they are!

Photo credit: Tom Glass

Yours,

Megan

Help Teddy Roosevelt do more awesome things!

Hey team,

Longlegs passed 1,000 miles, Erin passed 100 miles, and Teddy Roosevelt needs your help!

Go here to vote for him so he can go on an amazing adventure in Idaho. He's a finalist for an adventure grant, and you can vote every day:

http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/adventure-grant-2013?fn=3

Go! Vote now!

Love,

Megan

Use the Magic of the Internet to See Where Longlegs, Teddy, and Erin Are!

ALSO! I almost forgot!
This is so cool.
Teddy Roosevelt is carrying a little tracker that sends his family and me updates once a day. Here's a map that Teddy's family set up, using the magic and wonder of the Internets, to show you how far they've travelled.

Check it out here.

Erin joins the walk; Tom gets a trailname; Longlegs turns 23

Dearly beloved,

You'll have to forgive my silence on the blog. I've been making theatre and helping to run a workshop  for 60 artists from around the world and holding baby goats. Here's a picture of that last one:



Meanwhile, big developments from the trail and surrounding areas, in the form of three short stories.

Erin finished her third year of teaching on Friday, packed up her apartment with my parents on Saturday, and joined the guys on the trail on Sunday. They set out from Sonora, California last night. When we talked yesterday, Erin sounded excited and a little nervous about jumping in. Here is an adorable photo of Erin and some of her students at graduation:

Tom has been on the trail now for about three weeks. He, Max, and Michael climbed Mt. Whitney during his first week, a gentle start to the journey:



Tom has also acquired a trailname from an older PCT hiker whose trailname might be offensive if he didn't introduce himself thusly: "I'm Bipolar. That's both a diagnosis and a name." Bipolar noted Tom's enviable hat, which reminded him of another famous hat-wearing nature enthusiast:


So henceforth Tom will no longer be known as "Snack Captain" or "Skittles," which were my suggestions for trail names, but rather holds the proud trailname: Theodore Roosevelt.

Finally, last Wednesday was Michael's 23rd birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE BROTHER! He celebrated with a day and a half of rest and, I think, a healthy amount of beer. Michael, I haven't figured out a good birthday surprise for you yet, but you know I'll come up with one sooner or later. In the meantime, he just passed mile 1,000... i.e. over 1/3rd of the way to Canada. Jolly Well Done!


Those are the updates for now. Sometime soon I'll tell you all about Tom's Place and share more photos... but for now, I'm going to go rest. Love love love and happy Monday to you all.

The Journey to Kennedy Meadows

First things first: here is where Michael and his buddy Tom Glass are in the world:

Tom is carrying a little tracking device that sends me messages every few days. You can see that this is significantly more accurate than my previous system of approximation and divination. They are almost to Yosemite! They climbed Mt. Whitney! They made it through the scary icy parts (though significantly less icy this year than in the past; this positive development probably brought to you by Exxon-Mobile!). But that is all I know, since I haven't heard from Michael since I left him on the trail about two weeks ago. He expects to finish this segment by his birthday, this Wednesday, and hopefully I will have word from him then. 

Luckily, this gives me a moment to catch up on the trip to California.

I flew into San Francisco on May 25, found Michael's buddy Tom on a street corner, and threw Tom, my partner Rachel, and her sister Claire into a car on Sunday, May 26, bound for Kennedy Meadows. My brother and sister talked about Kennedy Meadows as if it is a famous, mystical place, and as such, I had done little research. I plugged in my GPS as we pulled onto Telegraph Avenue, typed in Kennedy Meadows, and hoped for the best.

Tom the Snack Captain and Claire the dishonorably discharged Snack First Mate

Well, perhaps I should have planned a bit better. It turns out that Kennedy Meadows is not widely recognized by Google. 8 hours and 4 In N' Out burgers later, we pulled into a mountain rancher refuge called Kennedy Meadows-- population 200. 

On one side of the mountains is Kern river desert lands, joshua trees and burnt-out areas and desert foxes included. On the other side is the Inyo forests, lush and cold.

We drove up to a log general store with a large porch, populated mostly by elders and their dogs. I should interrupt myself to say that Michael's instructions to me had been, "Go to the general store and ask for Longlegs." He seemed so confident that this would work that I hadn't questioned the plan, even when I received a facebook message from him warning me that there was no cell phone service in Kennedy Meadows. Now I was running two hours late and carrying my brother's hiking companion, bear box, and new shoes. I felt nervous as I jogged up the steps to the general store. If Michael wasn't here, I had no idea what I should do.

But there, of course, suddenly, he was: tan and bearded, surrounded by other skinny, dusty, happy-looking people who were wolfing down hamburgers and a Costco sized bag of Doritos. Michael has developed a tri-tone beard -- blonde moustache, reddish brown on his face, and black on his neck. He looks wonderful. 

Beavers and Tiny Little Bears on the PCT

This video goes out to Mr. Dave Coogan, who wins this Social Media Intern's award for the Greatest Chachke Finder.


If you can't view the video on this blog, you can also see it here.

Thank you, Dave Coogan, for being so awesome.