Shannon just departed on her backpacking excursion. She's carrying quite a pack. The route she's taking is apparently the most difficult in the Grand Canyon. She's interesting to watch, very self-motivated, constantly doing things I haven't personally seen other women do before.
Two and a half days here by myself. Looking forward to using the time well. The decision to leave Wednesday has taken some heat off my dwindling supplies. I'm still relatively abundant for three more days. I used an app called LockerMap that shows all the Amazon lockers on a map and found one in Durango. There's really nothing between here and there. I put in my order two days ago. Shannon tried to send something to the same locker yesterday and it was full. She'll have to wait for another destination.
One thing I did yesterday was set up a new Instagram account for Chasing the Butter. My intention is to use it as a free outlet for drone footage and short form video, often with CTB music in the background. I'd like to get it posting once a day. I'll need a system. That's one of the things I'll be working on this week.
We took a 7 mile bike ride down a rough trail yesterday. It was lined with thorns and there was no way to avoid them. Shannon is officially calling it the Trail of Torture. Her legs got torn up and my sweatpants took several new holes. I'm surprised neither of us got a flat tire. But the view at the end was spectacular. I got a little drone footage, though I didn't have much battery.
I also posted a new essay yesterday called Chop Wood, Carry Water. A meditation on the simple mundane tasks required to keep pace with your own life.
This camp won't quite be the same again. By the time Shannon returns she'll be exhausted and it will basically be time to pack up. Three more nights, then Wednesday morning I start loading. We'd be staying much longer if supplies were topped off. But I'll be excited for whatever's next. Things just seem to have a way of getting better and better these past few years.
I also want to start sending a weekly newsletter for Chasing the Butter on Substack. I'd been posting the daily journal entries to the site and realized I needed a notification system. Substack is a simple way to do that at no cost. The newsletter will be a weekly digest of everything going on in this world I'm building.
It's difficult to describe the contentment I feel right now. There's no place in the world I'd rather be. I am literally awake inside a dream I dreamed for years. I have this time to use as I see fit, all the tools to create anything I want to create, and the sense that my adventure is intersecting with exactly the right moment in history to enable what I'm doing. I increasingly have the feeling that this is my time, or that my time is near. It's difficult to explain. But it's a good feeling. And I intend to be a good shepherd to it.