Almost to Boulder. Spent the night — after some epic delays in Allentown, missed connections, missed standby, and terminal hussle in Chicago — in Louisville Co. Caught up with Mike; dinner, beer, and probabaly the last/only night under a roof. Sorted all my gear out this morning, and Mike’s leaving me the van for today. Couple stops, then off to try a trail hike to see how this “thin air” really works out.
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33lbs in the backpack (in the sea bag, for airline check luggage), 9lbs in the little pack for carryon.
All of this, comes out of those two little bags. A couple days before I left for Colorado, Mike and I set up a video call to do a gear shake-down. I started with the two packed bags, and then unpacked everything.
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This post presents a gallery of ALL images in this series. You can click on any to enlarge; you can even click on the first, sit back, and it’ll run them all as a slide show. The gallery is dynamic so it will automatically grow as I add more posts to this series.
For each person there is a sentence – a series of words – which has the power to destroy them.
~ Philip K. Dick
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The way of a superior man is three-fold: Virtuous, he is free from anxieties; Wise, he is free from perplexities; Bold, he is free from fear.
~ Confucius
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People universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you are fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.
~ Elizabeth Gilbert
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A man is one whose body has been trained to be the ready servant of his mind; Whose passions are trained to be the servants of his will; Who enjoys the beautiful, loves truth, hates wrong, loves to do good, and respects others as himself.
~ John Ruskin
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At the end, when your legs are tired
~ unknown
and your arms are giving out,
GET ANGRY.
Get angry that you are tired.
THEN HIT IT HARDER.
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There are two questions a man must ask himself: The first is, “Where am I going?” and the second is, “Who will go with me?” If you ever get these questions in the wrong order you are in trouble.
~ Sam Keen
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USS Furse (DD-882/DDR-882) was a Gearing-class destroyer of the United States Navy, named for Lieutenant John H. Furse USN (1886–1907).
My father served aboard as a fire control technician (as in “gun fire”); He operated a radar tracking and guidance system which controlled the targeting of the ships guns. At other times (I believe “special sea and anchor detail” being the correct parlance) he was tasked as a “phone talker” which generally entailed following a half step behind the officer of the deck (i.e., the officer commanding the ship at any given moment) and relaying communications through a microphone and headset he was wearing. (So if the Captain wants to single up all lines, he can simply say, “fo’c’s’le, bridge, single up.” and the ever-present, invisible sailer repeats it into the phones.)
Anyway. Here is a small collection of photos my father took of USS Furse.
Some of my readers are salty dogs, and will wonder how a sailor took photos of his own ship under way. During a Mediterranean cruise, Furse exchanged some sailors with a French destroyer during joint maneuvers.
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