As hot dogs go, I've made no secret that I have held the Cosmic Dog in the
highest regard. I imagine there are several factors at work which bring
me to make this bold statement. First, by the time I get up there, I’m starving
and everything tastes better when you’re hungry.
Second, the view of the valley beneath Mt.
Wilson is so beautiful that I would believe anything anyone tells me while I’m
standing there above the clouds, looking out through the tops of the tall pines,
listening to the ravens chatter.
I would
even believe that this dog is all beef, organic, grass fed and had just been
made this morning especially for me.
Lastly,
I’ve always been a hot dog person and I’m just not that picky.
And I don’t mean to be picky now… but:
I was really looking forward to this hot dog
on this day.
I was thinking of the last
one I had and the one before that both of which were spectacular.
Popping and juicy and just what the doctor
ordered nestled in a poppy seed bun.
We really worked for it today too.
We
headed up the Sturtevant Trail from the parking lot, 7+ miles up, up, up.
Each step bringing us a little closer while our legs felt a little
heavier. Each breath a faint questioning of our success. Oh, we
have never given up but it always seems that maybe we have made some kind of an
error in judging our ability to prevail. Maybe we are a little tired, maybe we
have had a hard week, maybe the cat wasn't feeling well last night. There
are so many burdens we are carrying and we must carry those burdens all the way
up. Only if we carry them to the very peak can we let them fly
free. Only then can we watch them drift away so we might descend back
into another chasm of the madness that is our lives, relieved of our supposed
and perceived cargo and ready to heave another load.
Always another load. Only if we find
ourselves on the precipice of our failure can we achieve forgiveness!
Anyway the hot dog is an important part of
this. Kind of like a carrot before the horse.
Ah, but where the Cosmic Cafe is concerned one should really not arrive too
early. They aren't ready and it makes them nervous. My hot dog
appears before I have even paid and I am suspicious of its preparation while
Sharon waits a healthy twelve minutes to get a vegetable sandwich, which she
points out isn't even heated so what took so long? The sandwich does look
good and seems to be worth the wait but by the time she gets it I have long
since finished my dog which I'm not sure was heated at all. As we start
down I'm feeling odd like we may see the dog again. Rather than feeling
lofty and lifted I feel weighted and well… weird.
My center of gravity is off and I have a
contradictory feeling of waiting even though I am moving forward.
My body is in motion and my head is standing
still.
Rather than communing with nature
I am thinking about how much farther it is and how much longer it will take.
Sometimes things just don’t go as planned.
Sharon seems to be struggling as well and admits that her knees are aching
and her shoes do not fit properly causing pain in her big toes.
We are on the downhill!
This is supposed to be the big payoff!
The angle is great enough that we really only
have to give into the forces of the earth pulling us along.
So I give up to that and remind myself that, as
long as we keep moving, in just a couple hours we’ll be on our way home.
And if I toss the dog, so what?
There’re aren’t many people on this trail and
Sharon won’t say a word.
Well I don’t
and we do and soon enough there we are.
On the way out we are rewarded unexpectedly as we pass by a
little baby bear making his way toward the trial. I hurry past due to my policy of not bugging
the wildlife and I encourage Sharon to do the same. And then what’s this?! We run into Canyon Dave on his way in! Hugs and hellos all around never mentioning
our difficulties but painting a picture of ourselves as superheroes who did the
Wilson loop in record time.
Hoping to see you out there! Until next time!
