in Marysville

I'm taking a break to write this entry. Am a couple miles into Marysville; in fact, I might be about to exit it, as I've gone a couple miles along State Avenue.

A few quick thoughts about the trip up to the Woods' house yesterday:

1. Thanks to the weather, the road to Arlington has been paved with slugs. I've become pretty good at spotting them in the grass as I'm walking along. Not that it's all that hard to spot them: some of those little bastards are fatter than I am. I haven't seen slugs this big since I lived in Switzerland. They make me hungry.

2. Slugs are naughty, naughty little creatures. At one point during yesterday's walk, I happened upon what appeared to be some sort of slug orgy-- a happy assemblage of slugs piled on top of each other. While other explanations for the pile did occur to me (rugby, stock trading, rock concert, huddling for warmth), orgy struck me as the most plausible of the lot. This was confirmed when one of the slugs pulled itself away from the slimy, writhing mass, fixed me with its eyestalks, and said, "Would you mind not staring?" Abashed, I walked on.

3. Yesterday's weather included some hellacious wind, and even a moment of hail. I'm not sure why, but when the hail started up, I started laughing. Maybe I found it ridiculous that Mother Nature had yet more to throw at me.

4. Many local roads have no shoulders, and as I got closer to the Wood residence, this became an issue: around evening rush hour, there were a lot of cars coming at me, so I ended up developing a rhythm: walk forward ten steps, step aside and stop, wait, then walk forward again. Sometimes I'd be forced to wait while a single car passed; at other times I'd have to wait as an entire herd passed me single-file, like sandpeople on their Banthas. The worst were the herds in which individual cars were very widely spaced: you'd think you had time to move forward, BUT NO! Traffic wasn't particularly dangerous, but the delays were annoying: walk, pause, walk, pause, walk, pause...

Woody actually met me on the road last evening when I was about two-tenths of a mile from his house. "You're almost there, Kevin!" he called from his truck. It was a relief from I finally made it to his home, met the family, had dinner, did laundry and a photo upload, and eventually collapsed into bed. I took a few family pics, and this morning Woody took some pics of me in my blue gear, in which I look like a giant Viagara tablet.

Many thanks again to the entire Wood family for their amazing hospitality. Thanks for this morning's breakfast and for allowing me to step part-way into the world of Soka Gakkai Nichiren Buddhism (nam-myoho-renge kyo). Good luck to the kids as they each embark on their personal endeavors, and good luck to the parents, who never seem to have a dull moment.

Thanks, too, Woody, for weighing my gear and discovering it is indeed 58 pounds-- I guessed well when I said "60"!

Speaking of poundage, this morning I weighed myself on a bathroom scale and discovered I was 275 pounds-- down from 293! Still another 75 pounds to go!

UPDATE: Am in Everett, staying with a gent named Miles who has kindly allowed me onto his computer. Miles is a great person to talk with about hiking, camping, etc.; he's quite an outdoorsman and I've already learned a lot (ah, but will Kevin retain what he's learned?). Miles just showed me how to make a camp stove out of two soda cans, a quarter, a pork-and-bean can, and denatured alcohol. Miles's religious orientation might best be described by the Korean term mu-gyo: he belongs to no specific tradition, though he did spend time with the Unitarians and actually knows Nan Geer, the feisty Unitarian pastor in Blaine! More in a bit; gonna try uploading some pics.

Here's Miles's gas stove:



And here's Miles himself, with demonic red-eye:







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