\u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 *<\/strong><\/p>\n May 23. 2015 – This post is on what you might call a pilgrimage<\/a><\/em> that happened last November, 2014.\u00a0That’s when my brother and I did an 8-day canoe trip “12 miles offshore.”\u00a0 We started out on Lake Ponchartrain, then paddled through the Rigolets<\/a> and on out into the Gulf of Mexico.\u00a0 We paddled 12 miles<\/strong><\/em> out into the Gulf, then “primitive camped” at night, on places like Half-moon Island and Ship Island.\u00a0 (And from time to time an occasional salt marsh<\/em>.)<\/p>\n Which naturally brings up the question, Why?<\/em>\u00a0 Why would two old geezers – 63 and 69 respectively – paddle so far out, into the realm of sharks and drownings?\u00a0For one answer we can turn to John Steinbeck.\u00a0 He began Part Two of Travels with Charley<\/em> by noting that most men his age get told, “slow down<\/em>.”\u00a0 And so they \u201cpack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood.\u201d\u00a0 (They \u201ctrade their violence for a small increase in life span.\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0 But that wasn\u2019t his way:<\/p>\n I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage\u2026\u00a0 If this projected journey should prove too much then it was time to go anyway.\u00a0 I see too many men delay their exits with a sickly, slow reluctance to leave the stage.\u00a0 It\u2019s bad theater as well as bad living<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That brings up what Robert Louis Stevenson said – in a similar vein – in his\u00a0 Travels with a Donkey in the C\u00e9vennes<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 (See also my other blog, to wit: On donkey travel \u2013 and sluts<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Briefly, my feelings about such a challenge – eight days canoeing 12\u00a0 miles offshore – are pretty much reflected in what Stevenson said in Travels with a Donkey<\/a><\/em>, and what Steinbeck said in Travels with Charley<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0(See Wikipedia<\/a>.) Stevenson wrote of his \u201c12-day, 120-mile solo hiking<\/a> journey through the sparsely populated and impoverished areas of the C\u00e9vennes<\/a> mountains in south-central France in 1878.\u201d\u00a0 The book was considered a pioneering “classic of outdoor literature<\/a>,” and is said to have been the basis for Steinbeck\u2019s Travels with Charley<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n Early on in his\u00a0Travels<\/a>, Stevenson found himself\u00a0 groping in the dark for a campsite.\u00a0 (A site “black as a pit.”)\u00a0 He ate a crude dinner \u2013 a \u201ctin of bologna\u201d and some cake, washed down with brandy \u2013 then settled in for the night.\u00a0 \u201cThe wind among the trees was my lullaby<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n He woke in the morning \u201csurprised to find how easy and pleasant it had been,\u201d sleeping in the open, \u201ceven in this tempestuous weather.\u201d\u00a0 He then waxed poetic<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n I had been after an adventure all my life, a pure dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and heroic voyagers; and thus to be found by morning in a random nook in Gevaudan \u2013 not knowing north from south, as strange to my surroundings as the first man upon the earth…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Pages 50-56, \u201cUpper Gevaudan.\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0 Stevenson seemed to\u00a0 be saying he’d experienced something that less-adventurous people \u2013 then and now \u2013 have no idea they\u2019re missing.\u00a0 That is, something<\/em> of the feelings that \u201cthe explorers back in the olden days had.\u201d\u00a0 (Those \u201cearly and heroic voyagers\u2026\u201d<\/em>)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 On page 64 he expanded on that thought:<\/p>\n Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for.\u00a0 To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind.\u00a0 And when the present is so exacting, who can annoy himself about the future?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In the same way – as I found out last November – \u201cwho can annoy himself about the future\u201d when he’s immersed in the exacting task of paddling for hours on end.\u00a0 When he’s 12 miles offshore, at the mercy of the elements.\u00a0 When day\u2019s end promises naught<\/a> but a lukewarm meal on a soggy beach, or salt marsh.\u00a0 (Which actually turned out to be quite rewarding.\u00a0 The wealth of bull rushes growing out of the sloshing water gave one of the softest “beds” of the journey).<\/em><\/p>\n But as it turns out, that\u2019s the nature of pilgrimages<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 They give us a break from \u201creal life,\u201d from the rat race<\/a> that consumes so many lives today.\u00a0 All of which I noted in St. James the Greater<\/a>. That post from my other blog noted a description of such a journey as \u201critual on the move.\u201d<\/p>\n In turn, through the raw experience of hunger, cold and lack of sleep, \u201cwe can quite often find a sense of our fragility as mere human beings, especially when compared with \u2018the majesty and permanence of God.’\u201d \u00a0 In short, such a pilgrimage<\/em><\/strong> can be \u201c\u2018one of the most chastening, but also one of the most liberating\u2019 of personal experiences<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n There’s lot more to say about last November’s canoe trip.\u00a0 But for now it’s enough to say that – despite the discomfort that’s part of the process – there were<\/strong> moments of pure bliss…<\/em><\/p>\n * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 *<\/p>\n I gleaned the foregoing from posts in my other blog, including\u00a0On achieving closure<\/a>, On achieving closure \u2013 Part II<\/a>, and \u201cI pity the fool<\/a>!”<\/em><\/p>\n The original post included an upper image, a photo I took near dawn on November 10, 2014.\u00a0 Captioned: “A siesta at sea<\/strong>, a skill you need if you want to paddle 17 miles in 11 hours.” That day we started at 3:00 in the morning, “12 miles offshore.” That’s also the day we did 17 miles in 11 hours. (Some six hours of actual canoeing.) Also, given the age<\/strong> of the intrepid canoeists it behooved us to learn – through “OJT<\/a>“<\/em> – the technique of \u201csiesta at sea.\u201d\u00a0 Near dawn there was the calm water “that is a necessity for such a siesta<\/strong> when you’re 10 or 12 miles out in the Gulf. Also a lower image, a photo I took near dawn on the morning of November 10.\u00a0 (Showing “clouds on the horizon, not land.”)\u00a0 That day we got up and broke camp at 3:00 in the morning.\u00a0 We hit the water at 5:00 a.m. and paddled the 17 miles in 11 hours, not counting an hour break on Cat Island, before proceeding to West Ship Island.\u00a0 Not bad for a couple old geezers!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 *<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * \u00a0 * May 23. 2015 – This post is on what you might call a pilgrimage that happened last November, 2014.\u00a0That’s when my brother and I did an 8-day canoe trip “12 miles offshore.”\u00a0 We started out on Lake Ponchartrain, then paddled through the Rigolets and on out into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=599"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22258,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599\/revisions\/22258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/georgiawasp.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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