As of November 1, the planned five months of the Trails Challenge had run. We'd explored at least one trail in each of the Five Habitats, and so had completed the challenge we signed up for, but had fallen six miles short of the fifty miles we'd privately intended to complete. Well, time to wrap it up and.... wait, this just in! The National Seashore Association is extending the challenge period through November! Surely we could do another six miles sometime during the next month.
The rains started early this year, both complicating our plans and helping to make Veterans Day Monday, when the sun came gloriously out, into probably the most beautiful day of this entire autumn. It was a wildly, flawlessly blue-and-crisp, russet-sweetgum-and-golden-ginkgo, oh-world-I-cannot-get-thee-close-enough day. And I was just sick that we'd decided to do chores instead of go to Point Reyes. By the time we realized what a beautiful day we had on our hands, it was too late to change our plans. So I got a little yard work done, and put in a few useful hours at the office, and had a nice lunch with a friend that it would be churlish to complain of--and that day will never come back. Never, never.
You know what, I used to think I was that "nobody" who was in danger of saying on my deathbed, "I should have spent more time at the office." Changed my mind about that.
The other thing: I completely fell into the contemporary vice of viewing civic holidays as mere days off work. I will, I will get serious about honoring those who have served on my behalf. I also love the old name Armistice Day, evoking the deep, wide joy of ending a long and horrible war. Both aspects deserve not to be blown off.
Practical lessons for road and trail:
1. Today will never come again.
2. Take a veteran to lunch.
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