Selfie of a Man on a Mission (Peak, that is)

And now, as Monty Python was fond of saying, for something completely different.

Most of my “Roadtrip” posts of late have either been farm-related or announcements of yet another short story going up on Medium. Remarkably little actual road tripping. Okay, a little Skytripping. But really.

That’s all going to change next week. Sunday morning, Devon and I hop British Airways eastbound, first for a few days exploring the streets of Dublin, then continuing on to Ghana for a week and a half of kind-of-work around Accra. And because that’s not enough excitement, I’m detouring to wild and exotic Rhode Island for a conference on the way back. So there’s plenty of actual roadtripping ahead, and I promise to keep you in the pics and stories.

But that’s all next week. This week, so far, I’ve still been crawling back from a bit of a chest cold that sapped my motivation to do anything but watch crappy movies from the 80s. Yesterday afternoon, I felt like I’d finally gotten it behind me, so when I managed to drag myself out of the house this morning, I decided to do what any unreasonable guy would: go climb a mountain.

Okay, it’s Mission Peak, so it’s a big, wide-open windblown service road above the East Bay, but it’s still a couple thousand feet of elevation gain over a six mile loop, and the hills are unarguably pretty.

It was warmer than I’d expected, but I brought plenty of water, along with crunchy snacks. Speaking of crunchy snacks (NOT!), I hadn’t been on the trail for more than ten minutes before catching up with a couple of women who had stopped ahead of me to peer inquisitively down at the path. Turns out that it’s tarantula mating season, and there was a great big granddaddy of one skittering back and forth.

Q: Why did the tarantula cross the road?
A: Do you want to be the one to tell him he can’t go?!?

But he was the last critter I saw the whole way, except for cows in the distance and a clutch of wild turkeys doing their lethargic best to look ornery. The rest of the climb was just a slow, hot, dusty slog, one foot in front of the other. Felt good to be moving, good to be pushing myself. Not much to tell other than that, but here are some pictures: