Signs of the Jinx

Okay, maybe this backpacking trip is jinxed. For this year, so far, it’s still on, but there are “signs” that are not promising—little “jinxes, if you will. And the whole trip seems like such a simple plan: hike Pa.’s West Rim Trail on the Pa. Grand Canyon during the height of the fall color change.

For at least the past 10 years something has happened to keep me from fulfilling this simple plan. I’ve been injured, solid fog and rain during the time I had to hike, couldn’t get off work, Dog was a puppy and was too young to go, one year I went to Alaska and didn’t have more vacation (I guess that doesn’t really count as a jinx), but each year it’s been something.

I’ve been slowly gathering my packing gear and laying it out on the living room floor (so I won’t forget anything). The backpacking food I’ve started to gather on the kitchen table. Last night when I came home from work, I discovered that one of the cats had somehow smelled food through the double-sealed, factory-sealed freeze-dried dinners and chewed his way into all but one of the dinners. I had tiny pieces of free-dried food all over the place. Since freeze-dried food is expensive, this is about a $25 setback. Not to mention that it means yet another trip to the backpacking store this weekend, when my weekend is already booked full. As I said, there are “signs.”