In general, I’ve been pretty good at containing my
excitement about this trip up to this point. I’ve been trying to hold off on really letting my enthusiasm
run wild just because of the amount of time between now and when we finally
launch. However, there are a
couple things that have the ability to really break down my efforts to stave
off excitement. The first of these
would be talking to the other people going on this trip with me. The more I talk to them, the harder it
is for me to keep myself from letting my mind zoom forward 5 months.
The second thing that affects my resolve when it comes to
keeping myself under control would be purchasing gear for this trip. Fortunately, I had a lot of the gear
that we need for this trip already just because I enjoy backpacking and have
accumulated gear over the years.
However, there have been a few items which I’ve needed to purchase due
to the nature of the places we’re visiting and just the nature of the trip in general. Inevitably, every time that I get a new
piece of gear, my resolve is forced to retreat a couple steps as my excitement
assails with increased vim and vigor.
A couple of nights ago, I arrived home from work to find the
new sleeping back I had purchased online a few days earlier sitting on my doorstep. Immediately, I felt a twinge of
excitement run down my spine. I
quickly went to my room and changed into appropriate clothes for getting in a
sleeping bag. I unpackaged my new
bag, laid it out on the living room floor, and slipped inside. OOOH it was wonderful. Exactly what I was wanting.
For a couple of moments I let my mind drift into thoughts of
just how many nights I was going to be sleeping in this sleeping bag and all
the places that this sleeping bag and I would spend the night together. A few moments was all it took
though. My resolve was in full
retreat with my excitement in full pursuit.
I acted on this excitement by proceeding to get out ALL of
my gear and lay it out in the living room. I grabbed my backpack and started packing. Now, though this was just a simulation,
I pretended like it was the real thing.
I went through all of my clothes trying to determine exactly what I was
going to bring with me come September.
NOTE: I’m definitely going
to have to do some work in the area of packing light. It’s going to be hard to whittle down a year’s worth of
living supplies to 30-35 llbs. Overpacking is a slippery slope. One day you’re packing one too many t-shirts and before you know it, you’re in this type of situation:
So anyways, after about 2 hours of doing a full packing job,
I picked up all my gear, placed my clothes back in my closet, and brought my
living room back to a place of order.
It was now about 7:30 pm and I needed to get in at least a couple hours
of studying for the CPA exam.
Thus, I whipped out my computer and started watching lectures on
preparing unqualified, qualified, and adverse audit opinions. At first, I had a hard time focusing on
studying due to thoughts of adventure running through my head. I was able to tune them out though and
get in a good couple hours of studying.
A couple of hours in though, I made a HUGE mistake. I checked facebook.
Within 30 seconds of checking facebook, one of my squadmates
had messaged me. In that one
moment I gave up even trying to keep my excitement contained. It was unstoppable. I started chatting with a bunch more of
my soon-to-be dear friends and my excitement kept building. After 45 minutes of getting to know
more and more about these people, my excitement hit it’s breaking point. I had to do something to release it.
I had a great idea.
I pulled all my backpacking gear back out and grabbed my tent, sleeping
bag, and sleeping pad. With my
gear in arms, I headed out to the wilderness of my mid-town Tulsa
backyard. I have gotten in some
good practice on setting up my tent so it was up and ready to go within 3
minutes or so. I crawled inside,
inflated my sleeping pad, and laid my bag out on top. I changed clothes (changed “out of my clothes” would be more
accurate) and crawled inside my sleeping bag. I laid there for about 5 minutes before I realized that it
was just barely after 10 o’clock.
When I realized how much of the evening was still left, I
made a barefooted, chilly bolt back indoors where I rounded up my macbook and
my noise-canceling headphones (this will be a key later in the story) and
headed back out to the wilderness.
Once safely back in my tent, I hopped back online and reengaged in
conversation with my squadmates.
Now I know what you’re wondering. You’re wondering whether I
felt as weird about the fact that I set up my tent and slept in my backyard as
you feel about it. The answer is
probably yes. I mean I definitely
was aware of the absurdity.
However, there are just times in life where you gotta let the absurdity
sweep over you and embrace it.
I was glad when it started raining at about midnight because
A of all, I like to fall asleep to the rain, and B of all, I was glad to know
that my tent can definitely withstand the rain. So I put my computer and headphones aside at around
midnight and fell into a WONDERFUL sleep.
I was very very happy with my new sleeping bag. The only really good quality sleeping
bag that I had previously was my Marmot Helium sleeping bag. Though I love this sleeping bag because
it is so light and warm, it is rated for 15 degrees and is a mummy sleeping
bag. For this trip, I really
wanted more of a 30-35 degree sleeping bag and I REALLY wanted to get one that
was a rectangle instead of the mummy shape. It was actually hard to find one but I finally found my
Kelty Galactic and, after sleeping in it during roughly 45 degree temperatures,
I have no doubt that it will keep me comfortable and warm throughout the race.
At about 5 AM, I woke up to the sound of birds
chirping. Actually, chirping would
be a huge understatement. It was
more like I woke up to the sound of a bird celebration happening all around my
tent. I mean these things were
going absolutely crazy with the squawking and chirping! And it sounded like there were
like 50 of them out there, though one of them in particular really tried to
ruin my morning.
This one bird whom I imagine looks something like this (just
cause it’s fun to picture him as hideous):
Made the same noise over and over and over and over again
for HOURS. I mean seriously it was
like he would make this same squirkity-chirp noise every three seconds! And it was a piercing little noise he
made too. The only way I can
really think of to describe the noise he made was like if you took a really
loud doorbell chime (ding-DONG) and then took it up like 3 octaves so that it
was incredibly high pitched. It
was the worst. He was such a tool.
Then, in addition to all the birds chirping, I started to
become more and more aware of the sounds of cars driving by. The closest main street is about 2-3
blocks away but it was weird because I felt like I could hear the cars going by
like they were 15 feet away.
Anyways, the point is that I slept VERY LITTLE from about
5:00 to 6:30. I just couldn’t tune
the little buggers out. Finally,
at about 6:30, I had to kick myself in the butt for forgetting that I had
noise-cancelling headphones sitting 2 feet from me all night! Ugh how that could have saved me.
So anyways, I put on my headphones with no music and just
let them cancel out the annoyingness of mid-Tulsa, early-spring-morning noise. It was wonderful again and I got in
another hour or so of sleep before I had to get up and go to work.
That all being said, I am happy to know now that I should
probably buy some earplugs before we head overseas. I figure that if we set up our tents for a few of the months
to sleep in, chances are that it’s not going to be in some serene, quiet valley
where there is no noise. And
mostly I’m just worried that my annoyingly ugly bird friend from the backyard
is going to follow me around the world and annoy me forever. So, note to self that I need to grab some
earplugs just in case I ever want to sleep.
All in all, I am very happy about my time spent in the
backyard. I feel like it helped me
release some of the excitement that I have about this trip and I imagine that
before September gets here, I’ll have to find other ways to continue releasing
excitement just so that I don’t ever explode due to over-excitement.
In reality though, I really am getting really excited about
this trip. I’ve gotten to talk to
a few of the other people going with me and I think we’re going to have an
awesome year together seeking the heart of God not just for ourselves but for
the nations.
Sorry this was so long…I ramble. You might have to get used to it.
