A reality check in the high desert....

I had an okay time on my trip. Half of the time I wanted to be back home, but I enjoyed one of the two things I ended up doing. The drive there was mostly enjoyable too----it's still so strange to me that one minute you're driving past Mount Hood and in the familiar PNW forest setting, then only a short time later, the landscape turns almost immediately starts to resemble New Mexico.

I learned a lot about limitations on this trip--mainly, I cannot do the steep, exposed, warm weather hikes. I bailed on the hike I had initially planned maybe a few minutes into it [who knew that a hike to a place called Misery Ridge would be so difficult?] I knew almost right away that it was too much for me and to continue would be to become one of those people that are ridiculed on social media. As it was, I had a lot of difficulty making my way back uphill to my car and had to stop several times. I ended up just hiking along the river and that was enjoyable, saw a lot of interesting birds and some lovely scenery, but realized when it was time to leave that it wasn't going to be a simple matter to just walk back up the way I'd come down. I should have not ventured into the majority of the park to begin with, and just stuck with a less difficult trail that didn't involve climbing down into the river canyon.

So I'm changing a lot of my plans for the next few years---thought I'd want to hike in Death Valley, Zion, and some of those other spots and I think thats out now. Possibly even Crater Lake is out. I'll play it by ear, and maybe got slightly out of shape over the last couple of months which contributed to my problem but I think I need to accept that I may be pretty much maxed out on the type of hikes I can handle. I also ran into some foot problems due to footwear not working out [going to have to return the fancy hiking shoes to REI...] It's probably going to need to be mostly flat things from now on, or shady forest hikes for anything involving elevation. And nothing involving major elevation in the summer months. This is really my first year of serious hiking so we'll see how it goes, but I'm going to take a step back from the major excursions. The hiking website I follow tends to understate the difficulty of a lot of the hikes, so I probably will stick to the ones it lists as "Easy" from now on and even look at those carefully.

On my second day there, I took a trip to the Painted Hills, which I had always wanted to see. The drive was about an hour an a half, through some of the smaller towns and then the Ochoco National Forest. Think that was another thing that soured me, I got tired of driving so much every day. I was worried that it would be a case where I spent more time driving than actually looking at things, but it turned out fine. I did a shortish hike up to an overlooking rim, high above. It was early but already a bit hot, but this hike was only slightly steep and it was pretty gradual. Enjoyed the view from above:

The Painted Hills are really popular, but I lucked out to where I always seemed to be leaving a place just as others arrived, so I got everything mostly to myself. This walkway through a couple of the larger hills is popular, but I enjoyed it in solitude.

I really enjoyed this one location simply called Red Hill. Otherworldly and wonderful.

I had originally planned for a third hike before leaving, but there was so much driving on both days that I had pretty much had enough after the Painted Hills. I rested in the motel room all afternoon, and went home early the next morning. And that may be it for me and travel for quite a while. I don't regret going, but I don't know whether the area has enough for me to want to return. I didn't see a lot of the other places that people often recommend. I may return, but it's not going to be high on my list and there are so many other things to see that I haven't gone to yet.

Scheming

Trying to figure out my trip. It's about a three hour drive, but I probably should stop and eat somewhere. And am I going to attempt the major hike as soon as I arrive at the park, or try and pace myself? It'll depend on how I'm feeling. I always huff and puff at first, so I'll have to judge if that's just the usual "not really warmed up yet" or if I've bitten off more than I can chew. But this hike isn't as much elevation gain [not-so-pro tip: elevation gain is a way bigger factor in a hike's difficulty than distance, though distance isn't negligible--but a mostly flat hike has to go a lot further to really test someone if they're at least somewhat used to hiking.] It also depends on how quickly the elevation gain happens [and I think this may be one of those that isn't super high elevation but the gain isn't gradual which makes it rough.]

I really want to see these fossil beds, but they're an hour drive from where I'm staying, and I'll probably spend more time driving there and back than I will actually looking at them. I also want to at least check out this hike in a lava field, but not sure how long I want to do that or if I want to plan the whole trip around it--and again, it's a bit of a drive, but just about everthing is like that in the high desert.

This will be the longest road trip I've taken since the two day drive where I moved up here. I'm excited. May do this other alpine hike and also check out this "wild west" type town. And of course new restaurants, breweries, etc...hope to take lots of photos. Oh, I still have one more day of work to get through first....

Trade-offs

I've enjoyed my homelife these last couple of years, the domestic arrangement with my ex and spending time with the dog. It's nice to be able to come home to something other than an empty apartment. But sometimes...

I miss silence, I don't really get that now unless I'm alone in my room or out by myself somewhere. Sometimes I think that's the point of all the hiking and outdoor activity, where I can just kind of be. I ended up not feeling like doing a major hike today, and went to a park that was new to me, but I really enjoyed it. It was a little over 3 miles, with some up and down but not enough to where it was difficult, just a little strenuous at times, which is what I need. Thursday I'm doing a more serious hike, which will be exposed. That's an adjustment for me, I'm used to tree coverage. It's also going to be pretty steep, pretty fast. Hopefully I'm up for it. Usualy the drive to take photos is enough to motivate me. Anyway, here's a pic from the place today. Leaves are changing, but not super fast.

"Ain't well, but I sure am better"

That was a title of a self-help book that was popular in the 70s. I used to read it when I was a teenager, trying to figure out a better way to exist in the world. It didn't take, but I still like some of the ideas. One of them was the concept of living life 5 minutes at a time. I don't do well at that, but it's something to aspire to. Now that I'm remembering better, this post title was a different book by the same author, but it was this kind of easy-going self-help concept. I think it was revealed years later that the author was some kind of sex addict.

Anyway, I am feeling better, and my mind is on the hiking trip I'm taking next week. Hoping to hike to a volcanic crater....

Sick

I seem to catch a cold every couple of months now, I blame the return to office mandate. Usually it results in my having to cancel something I was looking forward to, this time it was meeting a friend who was in town, thankfully they're returning in a month. I'm mostly over it now, got to work from home the last couple of work days. It's the busy time of year and I had to work a few hours over the weekend. But I figure it will help pay for a hiking vacation I'm taking in a few weeks, assuming I don't get sick again.

Been reading a lot of the literary/social critic Olivia Laing, highly recommend her book The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone. She is so good at weaving her personal story with profiles of artists and writers. I'm now reading an earlier book, The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking. Both my writing and my drinking have been somewhat lax lately. Hoping to at least get a good hike in maybe weekend after next. Meanwhile, it's reading and dog petting, and trying to recover from the working days and weeks.

The Lonely City

My latest read [or one of them] is The LonelY City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone, by Olivia Laing. It's part memoir, part cultural essay on loneliness and art. Loneliness is a subject of great personal interest, as you can imagine. After I wrote my last post, it made me think about that, the idea of companionship and friendship, and how I've often spurned relationships to where my solitude is a deliberate decision, yet I am also lonely.

We want the type of companionship we want, and anything else just won't work. I attended church for a while and there was this older man who would not leave me alone, to where I quit attending. He would glom on to me to where it was hard to even talk to anyone else. It was creepy. I had to be abrupt, which is hard for me to do.

There was also my previous relationship. I still feel bad that I didn't end it in the best way [suddenly, over the phone.] But it wasn't working for me.

It goes both ways. There are people that I wish I could be close to, yet can't be. I know I've probably unintentionally become the creepy person to someone else. Sometimes I feel like there's a deterministic element to it all.

I really miss the lockdown era at times, I felt like my world had more people in it then, even if they were people from halfway around the world. I"m still in touch with a lot of the people from that time, but it's not the same. There was this feeling that we were all in it together, and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. There was also this crazy sense of creativity that I can't seem to access anymore.

I don't really hold much truck with the whole "male loneliess epidemic" idea, most of that is self-imposed by indulging in asshole behaviors that the internet has reinforced. People used to be shamed into better behavior so they would grow out of things. Now they don't feel like they have to.

Those are some of my thoughts on loneliness, which aren't super related to Laing's book, which is fantastic. I sometimes treasure solitude, I like doing things alone, traveling alone, and only occasionally wish I could share moments with someone else. But when I do, it's really a sad feeling.

How I'm Living Now

When I'd last posted, prior to this recent 2026 upswing in blogging activity, I was living alone in my tiny apartment. I realize I need to update my readership on the various upheavals during the four year interval. I turned 50, spent most of my birthday on a plane to Luxembourg, where I met several online friends that I'd been chatting with during the lockdown years. Went to a few Nick Cave shows, then explored Vienna before heading home. I was pretty depressed, because I'd been so happy with the people I was meeting, but didn't feel like I would feel that level of connection again. At the time I was really on TikTok, and chatting with a few people from there. I had met someone who lived a couple of hours away, and we ended up in a relationship. This lasted about two years, which is the longest relationship I've been in aside from my marriage. But we weren't on the same page about a lot of things, and I realized after a while that this wasn't going to be a forever thing.

Then something happened to really complicate things, my ex needed help, and I ended up deciding to have her and her dog move back in with me. We drove cross country for three days to my apartment in Oregon. As you can imagine, my current girlfriend was not a fan of this idea, but I didn't regard our relationship as being at the level where either of us had veto power of the decisions of the other person. That was one of the things we weren't in alignment on. For me, things were at the level of "We're exclusively dating," and she was pushing me to make a marriage proposal.

I'm painfully aware that I made a decision more or less to go back to the past, but anyone who has been reading this long enough wouldn't be surprised by that. Anyway, split up with my girlfriend, and ended up buying a house with my ex-wife. We live together as platonic friends. It isn't the same as before, because we've both changed too much in the interim and had a lot of stuff happen. I don't really know what the future holds, if we're going to continue living like this till we grow old[er] or if this is just going to be for the next 7-8 years, if we will go our separate ways after I retire [and have to sell the house because I can't afford it on what I'm going to be taking home as a retiree.]

It's nice having her here, and I am totally enamored by the dog. I know it's made a lot of things more difficult for me, but I guess it's worth it. It's not always easy. But it's been good to have someone to help me through some of the things I've been dealing with. But it's interesting that loneliness is still a thing for me, though now I feel more like I have a home to be lonely in, instead of wandering the streets like a character in the world's most boring film noir.