Joshua Clark just called in a very descriptive and interesting post from the 14,200′ camp! The team spent the day resting from their tough move up to camp and all the effort they spent fortifying their camp last night.
I’ll say no more. Enjoy!
May 8th Team – a Wonderful Call From Joshua!
Wonderful, INDEED!!
Lord Joshua Maker Clark II, I’m listening to this message (over and over and over) on a shared computer, in the basin of a high desert canyon, near two new-best-friends, who happen to be horses (the tiniest horse on the planet and the most massive horse in the Universe–because I guess extremes are now my thing too, Love).
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO fantastical to hear your precious voice, and my heart is beating like a hammer (just like in the song), and even though I have millions of conversations with you every minute of the day, I have NO idea what to write to you now. The staff is pacing back and forth, bad 70’s music is playing, it’s midnight, and I’m in a size XL terry cloth robe, refusing to move away from this keyboard…this link to you, on top of the world.
Okay. So I should explain the robe.
Tonight, in the canyon, I tried to lead a Josh-style rebellion. It turns out that working with horses is kinda hard, and a few of us were in need of a nice long soak in a hot tub. We made a plan to meet at 10:30. Sadly, the pool/spa area closed at 10…chained-closed…padlocked. I insisted that hopping the fence was not only an option–it was to be expected. I mean, really. Right? But no. This is not that crowd. And Baby, I pushed for it (hard).
However, I did manage to badger them into hiking to the next pool/spa–a mere 5 minute-walk, through beautiful landscape, and I really needed to be with people because my soulmate was MIA, and I was starting to get a little frazzled, and it was still quite early, and we were already dressed for the occasion, and it couldn’t hurt to try, and did I mention that the love-of-my-life was stuck God-knows-where on top of the 3rd tallest mountain on Earth? So, we got to the yes, and off we went~~floating across the desert scape, all terry cloth and hair and flip-flops and intentions.
Intentions are important.
I was right in the middle of explaining my RedCarpetJoshTheory, which really is more fact than theory, when we happened upon our fearless leader, Lisa. WAIT TILL YOU HEAR WHO SHE WAS WALKING WITH (but that’s a story for a whole other day).
In the dark of night, the poor thing thought we were headless ghosts, and since we’d just been telling ghost stories an hour earlier–it made complete sense that a few would confront her or confer with her or……mess with her in some way.
She was terribly relieved that it was only a bit of her own tribe and took pity on our plight. She invited us to her own private hot tub, and away we all shuffled to her bungalow as I told the story of our Dalton Highway/Article Circle sign breakdown (the duck tape, the hunters and their the zip-ties, the truckers and their clamps, Coldfoot, etc.). As we soaked in the bubbly-hot water, we all agreed that you’d be fine. RedCarpetMagic would surely have your back. And I believed it to be true….right up until I said my goodbyes to them, wrapped my wet-swim-suited body back up in terry cloth, and returned to my too-quiet room.
I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t look back at this site until tomorrow. Checking 5 or 7 times a day had proven fruitless, and I’d just sent another SOS email to the good folks at the MountainTrip home office an hour earlier (because really? 6 days?). So I didn’t check. But I did check my email, and Todd (YAY TODD!!!) had sent a note that explained the the audio that he’d posted yesterday was titled incorrectly and that it was now fixed. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
I raaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaa-aaaaaan.
I didn’t grab my shoes or nuthin!
And so here I sit, even now, in this robe, in this canyon, in the middle of the night, surrounded by horses and 70’s music and in love with the most fabulous human being in the Omniverse, who is not MIA at all. He is, in fact, having the time of his life, seeing the curvature of the Earth (and, btw, no one ever did think it was flat) and watching storm systems move in and out and telling bad jokes (which I cannot wait to hear…again and again…because I always forget them) and loving the sound of his boots and me.
Lux.
ps: please forgive typos–blame the late hour, the hammering heart, and the hard horse work.
pps: see you very-very soon!
Glad to hear everyone is doing well, getting along and trading bad jokes! And I love the shout-out to Stardust!!! <3 <3 <3