Failure and Accomplishment

I got home a few days ago. I started my big trip hoping to accomplish a change in my health habits. Although it certainly was not the before and after story I hoped to create, maybe I nudged my health habits in the right direction. That feels like something of an accomplishment, I guess.

Although my initial plan may have failed, I do feel like I accomplished other things. Here is my list of what I feel like I accomplished on my cross-country trip:

I went to high places and never needed to be rescued.

My fear of heights and the vertigo that accompanies it actually got worse on the trip and several bridges almost did me in, but I did not ever need to be rescued. I got over the bridges and I enjoyed some great views. In public I managed to maintain my dignity, although the dogs saw some panic on a couple of overpasses in Texas.

I did trailering things.

I moved among people who know how to do things I can't do and for the most part it was good. A couple of men were condescending about my lack of skill driving in reverse, but others were truly helpful– giving advice and withholding judgment. One HipCamp owner and one Harvest Host encouraged me to practice on their property where I was the only camper and there was ample space. I took them both up on their offers, and I'm glad I did. By the end of the trip I was able to back up more proficiently--although far from skillfully. I backed up down a dirt road in the desert that had taken a turn for the impassable with Randy on FaceTime for moral support and two full-time nomads looking on with benign good wishes. I used a truck wash! That was really intimidating and it took a lot of fortitude to get in line with the semi's.

I shopped for a new truck without Randy

The biggest drama of the trip was the death of our GMC. The engine died on a hill outside Atascadero, California. God absolutely provided for us over the next few days and that story is worth its own post, but part of it was we needed to buy a new truck. Randy was working, so I did the shopping. It is hard to shop for cars and I had to do it quickly. Of course Randy okay'd my selection before we purchased our new to us Ram 2500 with a diesel engine.

I took Maggie to the beach at Carmel.

We wanted to visit Milana and James, our daughter and son-in-law, but I could have flown out to do that. Randy and I both love visiting California, so we knew it would be fun to spend a couple of weeks camping out there. But honestly what gave me the idea to do this trip was my desire to take Maggie our Gordon Setter to the dog-friendly beach at Carmel. When we visited this beach in 2019, I thought that Maggie would just love it there, and I would love being there with her. It was true. Something about Carmel really suits Maggie. When she and I were walking along that beach, all of the difficulties of the trip seemed worth it. Maggie may be a little spoiled.

I removed painful cactus thorns from all three dogs with my bare hands and recovered.

I had seen the cholla cacti at Joshua Tree, and read about how they are called "jumping cholla" because their branches detach so easily they appear to jump onto their victims. Later in Phoenix, I witnessed this first hand when first, Maggie, then Pepper and then Hank all got impaled with little branches of extremely painful cholla. Since I had nothing but my hands, the only way to remove them was to get stuck myself, which did really hurt. Pepper and Hank weren't too hard to help because they just let me get them out, but Maggie kept panicking and pawing at her face where the cactus was. I'll never hike in the desert with dogs without a multitool again.