Robert Francisco

I got an email form a friend who had talked to Liz and learned we were divorcing because of “mutual” desire. I was flipping ticked when I read that as in my view there was nothing mutual about it. At first I thought I was mad at Liz because I felt she mis-characterized the situation. That said, after 7 miles I realized that I was not mad at her at all (well ok, sorta). What I was really upset with is “how I would be perceived – if people believed it was mutual? Embarrassed, ashamed of failing and giving up – of quitting for god’s sake. It is odd how what looks like a primary emotion is actually masking what is really going on. In this case fear was actually driving the anger, and that anger was mis-directed towards Liz. We all talked about this subject for many miles and ultimately agreed that fear is a primary emotion that drives many behaviors. Now I have been paying a therapist $100 an hour to tell me what hiker trash observed and communicated as obvious for free. And this came in the first miles of the missing miles expedition which was designed to finish undone business.

We walked across more snow today then we saw in the Sierra last week. Amazing what latitude will do.

The people at Big Lake Youth Camp are super friendly and invited us to dinner and campfire (including singing and a play). We are looking forward to it.

Likely going to pay for the pace today but with only 63 total miles we can beat ourselves up a bit and recover later.