Our second day in Tuolumne, like the first, begins early. I roll out of bed at 4:00am, drive into Tuolumne to beat the 5am reservation-only window, and go back to bed. Sleep proves elusive. I’m torn about whether to try Tenaya Peak again, after our aborted attempt yesterday. We should have decided this last night, but I felt too tired to make a decision and deferred it to morning. Now I’m still not sure.
I want the climb so badly, but I’m not feeling good about another attempt. Nothing would really be different from yesterday. We also have a major climb planned for tomorrow, up Cathedral Peak, with a friend who is an experienced mountain guide. It wouldn’t be wise for us to climb two mountains in a row without a rest day. Even so, I feel sad and frustrated at my inability to climb this peak. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m failing somehow.
Dawn brings a sobering realization: after almost three weeks of van life in the Sierra Nevada, I’m tired. Every single day of this trip has been amazing and life-giving, but life on the road takes a cumulative toll. That is now manifesting as physical fatigue, as well as emotionality and indecisiveness. That alone, I know, is a good reason to stay on the ground today.
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When we first embarked on this trip, Hannah and I wondered how we would feel at the end. Would we be ready to return home, or would we want to stay on the road forever?
I suppose I have my answer. As much as I love this trip and want to steer my life towards places and activities like this, I’m beginning to yearn for stability and routines.
More than anything, I miss my kids. They are back in the U.S. after two amazing weeks in Tanzania, and are now staying for a third week with my ex-wife’s extended family. It’s the longest we’ve been apart in a decade. Later, sitting by Tenaya Lake, I watch a family enjoying their vacation. Dad floats in the glacial water with the kids, while mom lays out a picnic lunch. They look so happy, sun-browned, carefree. The sight opens a wellspring of emotion in me. There is so much goodness in my life now, so much momentum in this new season of my life, but so much brokenness still lies beneath the surface; I feel it every day, an arthritic pain that will never go away. I’m ready to be with my kids again.
I also miss the comfort of routines. On this trip I achieved exactly what I set out to do: embrace my alter ego as a writer who loves nature and sees life as a spiritual journey, write daily for myself, and share that writing with others. While this has been liberating, it’s also detoured me away from my core writing projects, specifically my book on belonging. I’m ready to get back to it, and that will be easier at home.
Finally, new adventures await. In a month, I will start a new job that will exercise my skills and abilities in entirely new ways. The flexibility and freedom in this new season will, I hope, allow me to write more seriously. My oldest son will turn 16 and start driving. A new school year will start. My children have extensive activities lined up. I’m excited to see how my relationship with Hannah develops, and we are already planning a range of family activities. Life is calling us back.
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I have been here before: yearning to remain on vacation forever, but feeling the inevitability of return, gathering on the horizon like a weather front.
This trip has always only been a transition period, an intermission between chapters of my life. Time and inertia are sweeping me forward, and stubbornly clinging to this trip would be unnatural and self-defeating. I need to let go, to trust this river sweeping me onward.
That is what I’m feeling today, I think: the need to slow down, to savor these last days, and to prepare for our return.
I do my best to let Tenaya Peak go. We sit on the beach beside Tenaya Lake, with our books and journals, taking in the lazy morning. Later, we go for an easy hike around Tuolumne Meadow. I keep looking back at the towering mountain. I feel deeply conflicted, but I also know the mountain isn’t going anywhere; we can return someday.
And we aren’t quite done yet. Tomorrow will be our biggest challenge of this entire trip, the capstone, the culmination of all our climbing: scaling Cathedral Peak.