AZT: the return

The alarm chimes at 3:13 am in our pitch dark bedroom. I’m cozy warm under the covers and falling back asleep is a real risk.

But I have got to haul myself up and get to the airport for my 0:dark:30 flight to Tucson and there are still minor details to sort in my pack and coffee to be made.

Sometimes, getting one’s slightly out-of-shape backpacking body and slightly out-of-shape backpacking mind to trail sets the tone for the entire endeavor.

If you followed my Arizona Trail attempt two years ago, you might recall I magically skipped from the Sky Islands right on up to the Superstitions and mountains beyond. It was a needed jump in order to ‘complete’ the trail in the time I’d allotted.

I was cranky two years ago – so I’m reminded when I meet Hector Lovemore after a fairly easy two flights. He’s the guy I met in the Oracle post office who laughed at my ‘garage sale’ of gear spread out near the PO Boxes. We were both sorting mail – his junk and mine a gear replacement for the warmer temps I’d encounter when hitting lower elevations.

That day two years ago, I was tired and anxious. The trail was way harder than anticipated and I needed a shower and a real meal. The phrase ‘no room in the inn’ was apt that day and I was at a loss for my next move.

But being somewhat travel savvy, I asked this friendly 80-something poking fun at me if he might let me camp on his lawn.

And a friendship was born! He invited me over, fed and watered me until I improved and we talked nearly non-stop, connecting like the uncle/niece relationship I never had.

The very next day, he drove me north, 100 miles right past the desert to Superior finding it a more suitable place for me to continue the walk, which I did straight into magical wildflowers, spectacular rocky vistas, deep frustrating mud, a bed bug infestation (!) and after that was managed, the Grand Canyon rim-to-rim.

It all felt enough and I was fine leaving it behind. But over the years as I’ve shared the photos and the themes of 40 days in the wilderness during Lent, the place grew on me. I came to love my adventure even more and it nagged me I hadn’t really completed it.

So I’m back, visiting Hector – an African American in a kind of twisted sense as a White Zimbabwean immigrant with a lilting accent, wide-ranging interests and an upbeat humor.

We got to spend far more time together than anticipated when a nasty accident happened on the two-lane road only four miles from his house, closing the highway and causing a two-hour detour.

Oddly enough, our detour circled my walk up to the prison-town of Florence – the quirky old town made famous in ‘Murphy’s Romance,” up to Superior, over Gonzalez Pass to Mammoth and Globe and over another Pinal Pass back to Oracle.

It was beautiful and we talked the whole way, though both were wrecked tired when we finally got to his house on a ridge looking right at snowy Mount Lemmon. He retreated to the Africa Room to listen to NPR News and I watched the sky turn red before owls and coyotes serenaded my tired eyes.

It’s a long way to Superior from here over rough but beautiful country of saguaro dotted canyons under a big sky. And I’m starting it filled with the kindness and generosity of a stranger from a chance meeting two years ago, a fellow traveler in this world who’s steps match mine.

And as Hector quips as I pack my bag, “You better enjoy the journey, because that’s all there is.”