Trips: Making them happen

[azbackpackr]

My daughter and I were discussing problems she has with friends who say, "Oh, yeah, I want to go on that trip" and then don't follow through with the planning, taking time off work, etc. They just talk about it. My daughter went to New York for 8 days in Oct. even though she had JUST started a new job, and she is planning a trip to Europe in July, even though she JUST bought a new car with a big monthly payment. (She is taking a second, part-time, job to pay for Europe.) She plans a lot of her trips with the one friend she can trust to actually FOLLOW THROUGH with plans. That is the thing that bothers her the most, that she tries to plan things with some of her friends, but everything always falls through with those other friends, because they do not organize their time, and put it on the calendar and make it happen. They just talk about it.

For some of us who are not young and single, I understand the problems of following through on trip plans. When you have family obligations, maybe not much leisure time or extra money, and kids in the house, it is harder to plan ahead. (It is better then to plan stuff with the kids, such as family camping.) However, my daughter's friends are young and single. And we all know people, of all ages, who say, "Oh, I would love to do that!" but then we observe what they actually DO on the weekend. They clean house and go shopping. Or, if younger, they may go to the bar at night and sleep til noon or later on both Sat. and Sun.--so there goes the outdoor weekend.

Sometimes it seems I just have to WILL trips to happen. I put them on the calendar, but other things come up. I have to balance out those other things. Which is more important, my granddaughter's birthday or a trip to Rainbow Bridge? Well, I am probably going to miss my granddaughter's birthday this year, to go to Rainbow Bridge. My granddaughter will not notice. She is only 3. I can go visit her before or after that trip, and maybe even have more fun with her, since there will not be a party going on.

I think there really has to be a measure of true passion in order for some of us to make trips happen. True passion: I could not afford to go on a one week backpacking trip to the Sierras, where I'd be gone from home for 9 days, even though I sold a bunch of stuff, including my canoe, to pay for it. I still came up short, since I also had to take all those days off work, where I would not be earning any money to pay the bills. Solution: I put some of the cost on my credit card. A bad solution, I know it. However, what memories I have of that trip to the Sierras!

A lot of what I experience is that people will say they like to hike or whatever, but they won't even make time for day hikes! Instead of trying to convert them, I either go by myself, or find friends who do know how to make time. I think a lot of people, they get a new girlfriend or boyfriend who isn't used to making plans and going places, and they get out of the habit, or they always have to end up leaving that person at home in order to go on the trip. True passion: I am going on the trip whether you want to go or not. Get it together, get yourself in shape and get the proper gear, you can go. But I am NOT GOING TO SIT HOME FOR YOU.

[CannondaleKid]

I hear you... my kids (kids?? they're in their 30's!) so far haven't taken after their old man, but then I was a late bloomer into hiking... although the bug was inside me since I was a youngster in South Africa back in the 1950's, it took the move to AZ from MN in my 50's before I allowed the infection to truly take hold.

It might have come sooner if it weren't for all the great paved trails in the wilds of MN. Trails that allowed us to inline skate past loon nesting grounds, catch a glimpse of all kinds of wildlife, black bear, timber wolf, fox, raccoon, badger, muskrat, white-tail deer and of course the various birds wheeling about the sky above us. All made easy by the silent glide of our wheels along the 10-12' wide trails. So I move to AZ and what?? They don't pave trails across the desert? Or into the Supes??
At least having gotten into mountain biking a few short years before leaving MN, with a quick tug this way, I slid from skating into mountain biking with a few hikes thrown in and now 8 years in AZ and it's 95%-5% hiking over biking. But that probably has something to do with not biking every weekday like I used to on the way home from work. Funny how that works when you no longer have a job... (the no job part not being by choice)

Digressing to the subject at hand... For much of my employment in AZ I really had no idea when I would have a day off, sometimes not knowing until the same morning. Planning more than a day or two in a row sometime in the future?? Rare. Thus the majority of my hikes were last-minute deals, which mean hiking solo. The first four years on HAZ, I hiked with one, count 'em, one HAZ'er, Stiller. (now of course, The Stillernator) Even now, I continue to hike on the spur of the moment. Ok, so part of that is I'm not much of a group hiker, 2-4 is what I'm most comfortable with.

Now with plenty of time on my hands to hike I still have to strike a balance against scraping the bottom of my savings barrel, picking hikes closer in to save gas. Thankfully the Supes are close at hand, and there's the old reliable Usery Mountain Park a hop, skip and a jump away. Too bad the gf is working 2-1/2 jobs and getting edgumacated or I'd never be hiking alone. :-({|=

[PaleoRob]

I hear you. I am guilty of it sometimes too. I think that I am more willing to drop everything and hike, while my wife is more of planned trip in advance sort of person. The problem is, she doesn't like to commit to things in advance! So its been hard after being laid off from the P Fund to get in a lot of decent outdoors time.

[azbackpackr]

(Hey Rob check your pms!!)

Those MN skate trails sound awesome. My DIL is there right now, visiting her folks. She likes inline skating. I will have to call her and ask if she knows about those trails. Of course, right now it is WINTER.

I do a lot of day hikes on the spur of the moment, but rarely ever do backpacking trips that way. Sometimes I can find a companion, other times not. My daughter will go with me on the spur of the moment, but she also knows how to plan for a foreign trip that is 7 months away.

As for my latest interest in kayaking, I imagine that spur-of-the-moment river trips are harder to plan, especially solo, unless you use a bicycle to shuttle yourself.

[Jim]

So you daughter has problems with her friends in their early 20s being more than just talk and following through on the big ideas they through around? Shocking! I am shocked!

[azbackpackr]

So you daughter has problems with her friends in their early 20s being more than just talk and following through on the big ideas they through around? Shocking! I am shocked!

Yeah, imagine that! On the other hand, in the past 3 years she has traveled to Costa Rica, Honolulu, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, Minneapolis, and San Diego. Not to mention all the short trips within AZ. And she's a pharmacy tech.

When I was in my late teens and early 20's I did the same thing, except I did more backpacking, and went to fewer cities, since that was my preference. Having babies kind of put the skids on long distance travel for me, since we could never even begin to afford it. So we went car camping instead.

The point here, though, is in how we make future plans, and whether we follow through with them. Do you put a line through the calendar from Friday to Sunday, on a future weekend months from now, with the name of the backpacking trip you are planning? I do!

But, Jim, I think people in their 30's and 40's can be even WORSE about making travel plans than student-aged people. The middle group tends to get into the housework and mall routine. Their weekends revolve around their house and how to care for their house. New stuff for their house. Clean their house. Fix stuff in their house. And the worst (oh, horrors) remodel their house. (I assume my daughter's young friends will marry and become chained to their houses in the same way.)

[Jim]

I'm not just talk, but then I don't have a home either.

[azbackpackr]

I do own a home in Eagar, and this week I am going to get rid of a lot of stuff that is in it. I look at possessions in terms of the cubic feet of space they occupy. I have already gotten rid of quite a few cubic feet of stuff over the past few days. Plan to do more of the same this week. End of the year push to lighten my load, and then will start the new year with far fewer possessions. Hope to get rid of even more of them over the next year, but will not take time away from my planned trips to do it!

[chumley]

One word: Priorities.

People will often get defensive about my use of that word with them, but ultimately, it's really that simple.

They flaked or otherwise didn't do something because they decided that something else was more important. Sometimes those "other" priorities are quite valid, but when you put it in the perspective of simply choosing something that is more important to you, then we know where we all stand.

Sometimes "sleep" is more important. Sometimes, a family event. For some people its a football game, or watching something on TV. I'm generally ok with all of them. Do what you want, doesn't matter to me. Just decide what is your priority and go with it. Like Elizabeth's daughter however, I will lose my mind if you can't decide what is more important to you until the last minute. My plan should not be your backup. Either you want to do it or you have something else you'd rather be doing. Grrr.

[azbackpackr]

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. And how we decide our priorities varies wildly from one person to the next. Some people, for example, would never consider going on a vacation over Christmas, not because they don't want to, but because they feel obligated to certain family traditions. So, you are going to find that some people are able to say, "To heck with traditions, this year what I WANT to do is go to Acapulco for Christmas, not to Aunt Jean and Uncle Fred's. I don't want to go to their house and I am not gonna go! So there!" But for other people, I think even if they kind of want to, they can't bring themselves to break free of these expectations.

Since joining internet hiking groups--I belong to several--I have found out via other trip planners that if it is a backpacking trip where no permit is involved, go ahead and let 12 or 15 people sign up for it, (Even if you want only 8 people) knowing that a bunch of them are going to bail at the last minute. Or, charge them a hefty fee of $50 or thereabouts, refundable at the trailhead.

[te_wa]

I do own a home in Eagar, and this week I am going to get rid of a lot of stuff that is in it. I look at possessions in terms of the cubic feet of space they occupy. I have already gotten rid of quite a few cubic feet of stuff over the past few days. Plan to do more of the same this week. End of the year push to lighten my load, and then will start the new year with far fewer possessions. Hope to get rid of even more of them over the next year, but will not take time away from my planned trips to do it!

the "ultralight" philosophy has a positive way of creeping into your daily life, at home work and other places. it is far more than just limited to backpacking. i see it is rubbing off on you, too. nice!

[kevinweitzel75]

the "ultralight" philosophy has a positive way of creeping into your daily life, at home work and other places. it is far more than just limited to backpacking. i see it is rubbing off on you, too. nice!

Now thats the truth! I have noticed over the past couple years or so I have been doing the same thing. First it started off to pay bills, but after I started a "real" job, it has continued. I think if I didn't have a wife and kid, all my stuff would fit in my backpack! It's nice not having to worry about a car payment and a boat payment and a house payment and credit card payments... I could go on. You never realize how much crap you have till you REALLY start looking at it. I mean it's nice to have all those things, but I don't need them. I would much rather not have them than worry about hoe to pay for them.
Now that I have gone completely off the subject, back to the subject. I have a hiking partner that will make plans and then call me the night before and cancell cause "something eles" has come up. I just quit making planns with him. And then he finds out that we went on a hiking trip and gets butt hurt about it! What ever. Its always drama with him anyway. Now, I've had to cancell a hiking trip before, but it's always involved something with my son. My son comes before anything. Now that he's getting older, I try to take him out hiking with me more.

[azbackpackr]

I have been trying to get rid of stuff for years. I inherited a lot of furniture, knickknacks and stuff like that. I think of the items in my house in terms of the cubic feet of space they take up. During the next week I plan to empty out some more stuff for sure. Already have been to the dump once, and I am making a "free furniture" pile on the street corner. Anyone want a Lazy Boy chair that no longer lazes? How about a good tailgate for a 2000 GMC Sierra pickup? (The pickup itself was totalled 3 years ago in Yuma.) Half of a bunk bed that was sawed in half to make it into a twin bed? How about lamps? Suitcases? TVs? I have 4 TVs (got rid of 2 of them last summer, and then my sister shows up with another one and dumps it in my living room. What, I'm the family storage area?) And I don't even watch TV! In fact, since the DTV bill didn't get paid, we don't even have any service here now!

About 3 years ago I sold a bunch of knickknacks on ebay. Hummels. Made about 1400 bucks on those trite little things. I need to start doing that again. Anyone like Hummels? How about vases? How about nativity scenes? How about dolls? How about kachinas? (Actually, I like the kachinas and the Zuni fetishes.) How about a full set of 1912 centennial Charles Dickens, in 24 volumes? (The latter is worth NOTHING on ebay, by the way.)

Oh, you say I need to have a yard sale? After my father in law passed away 5 years ago, we had 4 yard sales, and took what didn't sell on the lawn to the thrift store. We need to have about 10 more yard sales. My father-in-law was the knickknack collector. He went all the way to Germany and what did he come home with? Hummels! He also collected nativity scenes.

Last summer I got rid of a lot of stuff, and my efforts did make a very slight dent in the pile. I have a 2800 square foot house, a garage and 3 sheds. They hold a LOT of stuff...

[big_load]

People sure do vary. Some you can count on to be there on time or even early. Others will turn up eventually, but it might be a while. Some call before canceling, the night before or at the last minute, and some just don't show up at all. Some people I'll wait a long time for, others I won't. I don't expect anyone to change, but it can be frustrating until I figure out their pattern. In any case, other people's availability rarely determines whether one of my hikes will happen, although it may affect the route.

[te_wa]

there is a phrase from an old song "production and consumption define our hollow lives"
once we admit that is an absolute truth, we begin to discover that our negative impact far outweighs the "immediate satisfaction" we gain (and the "glory" of this satisfaction only lasts a short, short while).

its an exponential equation of sorts: with less stuff, we need smaller home. with smaller home, use less electricity. less water. less junk.

same with ultralight backpacking. you carry less weight, burning less calories and using less water, which in turn allows you to carry less food and less water, which in turn lowers your pack weight...
i hate my 2,300 sq ft house. it is a money pit. it has been listed on the market for a couple months now. im also going to sell one of my personal vehicles, i dont need two.

[azbackpackr]

I have some cycling friends in Yuma who live in a motorhome year round (but not in summer in Yuma!). They don't move it very often. Anyway, they seem pretty happy with just the basics, plus as many bikes as will fit in the big storage compartment underneath. The husband was 29 when they retired, the wife was 35. They have been retired for 11 years. They do get jobs, occasionally, wherever they happen to be summering or wintering. Seems like a very pleasant lifestyle, looking at it from where I stand. They used to have a big house, horses, acreage, a barn, etc. They sold everything 11 years ago and hit the road.

As for my original topic: I have not had a lot of problems with no-shows for backpacking trips, but when I have had that happen, and when it happened without a call or explanation, it irritated the heck out of me. I have cancelled too, but I always let the person know, and let them know the reason.

[imike]

nothing can match the pleasures of a minimalist lifestyle... just hard to beat. Simple is freedom. I'm selling my truck to enjoy the feel of just cycling for the coming three years (...tend to do it every fifteen years or so, usually for 3-4 years at a time).

As regards no-shows and late cancellations... hmmm... I quit scheduling group events because of that. I enjoy solo too much to add in the negative aspects of failed coordinations. Cancel early or show up!

[PaleoRob]

I have many loves. Hiking is my number one hobby, and takes up the least space. I also love reading. This takes up lots of space (books). Some people say "Go to the library!" I do. But the Page Library is not the end-all-be-all of libraries, and our ILL system sucks. So I buy books. I also like guns. Guns and accessories take up space - especially to store securely. And I have my tractor - a family antique which I restored completely. Obviously this takes up room. My tractor friends complain that I never go out and tractor along with them, my shooting buddies complain that I don't go to the range with them much, and I complain that I don't hike enough to satisfy myself. It is a strange situation I am in. Ironically, I am in the middle of cleaning up my office. I decided to take a break to type this!

[azbackpackr]

Check your pm's lately, Rob?

We have a lot of the above, too, but not the tractor. We have 4 vehicles. tons of books, 2 kayaks, gardening equipment, etc. We will probably be getting rid of a couple of the vehicles, and about half the books.

I put the Lazy Boy, a small file cabinet, and the GMC Sierra tailgate out on the corner with free signs on them. The file cabinet disappeared in less than 15 minutes.

[PaleoRob]

Yeah, I check my PMs - yours is next in line! ;)