A Change of Plans

You may be surprised to read that it was 5 degrees when we began our walk this morning. You may be further surprised to learn that I was thrilled about single-digit temperatures.

We awakened yesterday to five glorious inches of white powder, leading to one of the more memorable hikes of this trip. It did not get warm yesterday afternoon, barely reaching the mid-thirties, but the desert sunlight is direct. Our backyard turned into a red clay mud field. This canceled our second walk of the day.

So, when we woke up to frozen ground today, we hurried to get our morning miles in. By mile four, though, with temperatures still in the teens, the rising sun was already loosening the mud.

For the second time during this Vagabondage, the weather changes our itinerary. A cycle of frozen nights and mud-luscious afternoons is upon us. (White Mountain poet and artist e. e. cummings once penned the line, “The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.” The dear man clearly never met the wet soil of sou…