Its SUNDAY MAY 5 (with full reverberation). And we have ah, recently crossedunderneath Interstate 15, and now we’re in a big huge oval-shaped culvert that goes underneath the railroad tracks. And ah, you know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of the bionic man. There was like a tunnel that the bionic man would go through, when he was looking for the sasquatch or something. And ah, this reminds of it. The walls are all sort of ripply and the bottom is cemented. And it’s got a loud echo. Woo (oo oo oo o o o). ============ Well I think I made a pretty important discovery on that part of the trail.

Pete: Uh-huh, like what?

Well I, I don’t know, something we were talking about at lunch made me think when we started off walking that we’ve been focusing on how to really enjoy the things on the trail that we do between walking, but we really haven’t been focusing much on how to enjoy walking itself.

Pete: Right. Yeah, (something)

Yeah, I had pretty good, but I was trying those breathing exercises before, and I knew those had something to do with it, and I think when I would try em, that I didn’t really know where to take them.

Pete: Yeah.

And what they did, is they made me aware of everything that was going through my mind at the time. Because I was trying to do something really regular, all of a sudden I was aware of all the other stuff I was thinking. Well, I somehow realized that the next step to take is to control what you’re thinking at the time, and to guide it. And what I started thinking about was, well, how would somebody really go about enjoying walking? And what is there about it to enjoy? And then I started following that line of thought and, just trying to control my thoughts and keep them on that line and it just started happening, I think I enjoyed that section of the trail just about more than other on the trip!

Anyway, I don’t know where to go from there, but that’s a, that just seemed to work. That’ll be a big help. I started to get this feeling in my body, and thinking about, just thinking about whether my body or not is, felt good or whether it felt bad. And I just started thinking about all the little parts, and which parts felt good, and which parts felt bad, and the feeling was just kind of there – it just dawned on me that my body is pretty much enjoying what is was doing. It feels good just to have it pumping down there, I can feel all the fluids kind of flowing through it. Everything is doing its job. It’s undergoing hardship and stress, but I think its doing what it wants to do.

Pete: Yeah I get pretty into it now and then. Pretty mesmerizing. (Can’t understand Pete for a minute…)

Yeah, definitely, which is why I’ve been trying to learn more about walking. It’s such a major part of this lifestyle that we’re trying to do. And that’s, that’s really what popped me into that nice frame of mind that I did on that section. Was just, I started thinking about, how was I going to learn about walking? Cause I, I felt like I was learning lots about ways of life in between walking. How to supply ourselves with what we need, and how to feed ourselves, and how to really, you know, really enjoy all the stops along. When we stop and do something, but I didn’t feel like I was making much progress actually learning the walking part. And that’s really what I wanted to do, that’s what I started out wanting to learn about. And all of sudden, from there, I can’t really describe what happened. It’s just I started to learn about walking.

(mumbling about the view)

Pete: Yeah I definitely enjoy walking, and get into it from time to time. But, like anything, like I think I kindof experienced a little bit of … (trails off)

———–

Alright well today was a pretty good day, so I’m gonna go ahead and record my notes about it on the other side. I guess this, still Sunday, may, what did I decide it was, Maaay 5th. Yeah , that sounds right.

Pete: Cinco de Mayo hlhlhlhlhlhlhlhlhlhlhlaaaaaahahahahaaaa!

Cinco de Mayo! No Wonder!

Pete: That’s why we had rice and beans!!!!

(more screaming)

Cinco de Mayo. Oh my God, the day was just fulfilling we decided in every way. We started with the…

Pete: Hard, but fulfilling.

Oh, yeah, it was a hard day. Definety hard. We tired ourselves out. But ah, w e started off by doing just an easy mile up to the 24-hour fast food joint, wher e ah, let’s see we each had hot chocolates and the special vegetarian omlette, a nd ah we, on top of that we split ah, strawberry delight. Which was a full stack of plate-sized pancakes, which ah, and covered with strawberries and whipped cream. But they were really good us. Since we asked for them to divide it in half, they went ahead and cut the pancakes in half first, and just loaded on a full plate of strawberries and whipped cream on two separate plates. So we scored big with the breakfast, and we even saved a little bit of the hash browns from the omlette and stuff like that in our bowls for… to augment lunch. So we really got off good. And plus they had a bunch of candy there so we bought some candy bars and some other little kind of candies. And filled up with water, we carried about a gallon and a half of water total. Headed up the hill. And the hill was big, and the hill was long, and the hill was hot most of the day. But ah, it was a nice climb. And ah, we stopped about half way for lunch. And had, I actually packed a donut for lunch, Pete had bought one too but he ate his right after breakfast. And ah, just had our leftover hash browns and omlette and ah, and the usual lunch too, so a very fulfilling lunch. Plus a candy bar apiece. And ah, then we, that was enough to power us up the rest of the hill, although uh… to the end of the 23-mile 5000-foot climb although we were REAL tired when we got here. We ah, are in pretty good shape now. And we had a, just had a… you know, also just, we both kind of got back into our feeling of, of kind of, I don’t know exactly how to describe it but we both kind of… we fell back into sync and got back into the feeling of walking again. After our various trials and tribulations regarding the Festival of Calories and Big Bear. So I think we’re back on track now really. And ah, we just had a big old dinner of Spanish rice and beans for Cinco de Mayo. And ah, both just had a candy bar for dessert. And we’ve both just been fulfilled at every meal today. So ah, hoo!, can’t ask for much more than that. It’s terrific.