“If it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove its cause, for unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic. If, on the other hand, one cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude.”
Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl, Simon and Schuster, page 148.
“Give me until noon, and I think I’ll be ready,” Astrid said the next morning when asked about her fitness to hit the trails again.
And at noon, Astrid joined Bjorn and Snorri on a hike on the Baldwin Trail in the Cococino National Forest. A few yards onto the trail, the illness suggested itself, but she had in mind some acquaintances she knew, who, while ill, kept moving through physical challenges in the wilderness to finish a trek, without the help of a 24 hour respite in a hotel. So she hiked on, tried to forget herself, focused on her surroundings and hoped the illness didn’t return.
The trail was lined with plants and trees surviving just fine in the arid conditions, to fill in gulches and gullies between enormous red rocks. The trail was not rigorous and eventually opened out into wonderful, curvy red rock formations which created an open cathedral-like atmosphere.
The next day, they packed up and headed to the Red Rock Secret Mountain Wilderness of the Coconino National Forest, where they climbed a rocky mountain-side to a hidden arch at the top.
After a fruitless search for penny-smashers in the touristy-merchanty area in nearby Sedona, AZ, the family headed to their next destination per The Agenda: Saguaro National Park. Between them and a forest of cactus lie Phoenix, Arizona, which, to Astrid, was a nightmare, because on the strong recommendation of Bjorn as a precaution against car-sickness, she was driving.
The mill towns, with all respect, are knots of worms. You come out of serene country and suddenly you are tossed and battered by a howling hurricane of traffic. For a time you fight your way blindly in the mad crush of hurtling metal and then suddenly it dies away and you are in serene and quiet countryside again.
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charlie, Kindle Location 1187
To drive through a “knot of worms” on a moment’s notice only increased her stress and worry. But she did it, even stopping at an In-N-Out Burger for lunch. She did it, not without some worried, anxious, and aggravation-laced words, and without saying, “I was recovering from being sick and you made me drive through Phoenix, AZ.”
Saguaro National Park flanks Tucson-one part is on the West, one on the East. It was hot and dry when they drove into the visitor’s center of West Saguaro where they picked up some maps and refilled their water bottles before driving to the trailhead loop. As they left the car at Hugh Norris Trail, a condor or buzzard swooped low to see if the family were something it could eat, then flew on into the great expanse of hot, dry sky. The trail wound through a forest of varied cacti, then up steps on the side of a mountain. Along the way, signs warned hikers to stay on the path, but Bjorn, in pursuit of a very good picture, stepped a few feet off, and was promptly met with Nature’s Wrath.
On his way back to the path, he brushed against a small, cute, soft-looking cactus (Teddy Bear Cholla) that left dozens of very sharp spines in his jeans and in the soles of his shoes. “Serves ya right,” Astrid said as she picked the spines out of his jeans cuff. As they walked he stopped to pick more out. Nature will always win, eventually.
Luckily, this wasn’t one of the super-special protected cactus, and this cactus survived and spread by the very thing Bjorn did: it hitched rides from unsuspecting animals to spread itself.
Prickly spires of muted green cactus cascaded down the mountain side, dotting the sun-parched terrain among low brush, scraggly trees and rock formations which filled in the spaces between.
As they drove the loop, they encountered more wildlife than at any other spot that trip: rabbits, bobtails, lizards, birds. The road was crowded with saguaro cactus, it is all one can see at spots on the road, like driving through a short forest.
The sun met the undulating horizon as they drove out of the park, and a quail-like bird ran across the road in front of them.
“What kind of bird was that?” Astrid wondered out loud.
“A road runner,” suggested Bjorn.
“No it wasn’t, it had a little thingy on its head, like a quail … bobtail?”
“It was literally running on the road,” Bjorn insisted. “It was a Road Runner.”
When traveling, illness and its epilogues create an opaque film over one’s senses, blocking out the “magnificent” from the details, the “grand” from the vistas, and the “edifying” from the experiences. It shrinks the self down to feel every miasma, pain and exhaustive pang, and pulls the attention away from the wonderful differences of the external here and now, to the small world of “I”, trapping the traveler within herself.
But at the end of the day, Astrid was almost free from the mental confinement of illness and she could begin to see and appreciate the wonders and fascinating differences around her.
Not I 