You know that old trees just grow stronger
And old rivers grow wilder every day
Old people just grow lonesome
Waiting for someone to say, “Hello in there, hello”

–John Prine

Life continues apace, moving forward step-by-step. And so do I!

Last night I took a third-place finish in the darts tourney. Not bad considering the competition was strong, my partner was clueless, and I was off my game. There is peace in not caring!

For whatever reason, I had a craving for bulgogi last night. So after darts, I popped into John Kim’s The Pub restaurant and ordered me up some. I was disappointed that there was no kimchi available. The waitress said the price of the ingredients made it too expensive to serve as a side. That’s not the first time I’ve heard about a spike in the cost of veggies here lately. Not sure what’s going on with that. Coincidentally or not, the Royal supermarket has been sold out of kimchi for a couple of weeks now too.

For today’s walk, I decided to hike to the old Navy base via the highway and return to Barretto on the beach. It’s been quite a while since I’ve done this route because frankly, walking on the highway is a pain in the ass. The cars, trucks, and jeepneys tend to take the curves by intruding onto the shoulder where I’m walking. So you always have to be alert and ready to jump into the drainage ditch beside the highway should survival dictate such drastic action. Luckily it didn’t today. The walk back on the beach is a little shorter but not without its perils. There are a couple of seawalls you have to scale and also some pretty big rocks to climb up and over on the way home. I used to sometimes go both ways on the beach route but lately, all the access points want to charge an entrance fee. I can’t abide that bullshit when I’m just passing through.

On my way out of town, I popped into Arizona Resort for breakfast. It’s been some time since I’ve been there. The waitress still remembered me though. No other customers were there either. Sad, not sure if the place is going to make it. The owner had been advertising on Facebook about showing the football games today and opening early, but there were no eyes on the televisions. Mine included, I don’t give a shit about American football anymore.

Alright then, so on with the walk! Once again, I recorded the adventure on Relive. Well, technically, I recorded the hike on the Map My Run app, and Relive pulls that data and uses it to do their thing.

https://www.relive.cc/view/vdORWYXGer6

Oddly enough, this time Relive didn’t sort the photos into the proper sequence. I think the reason is that my highway route out and beach return didn’t have enough separation between them for the Google Earth coordinates to differentiate whether I was coming or going. No big deal I suppose. I also discovered that I can only post ten photos on the free version of Relive. I’m not quite ready to go premium yet though.

No worries, here are all the photos in the order I took them:

Another day, another hike is in the books. Well, on the blog anyway. There was something unusual along the way this time though. When I’m out walking alone I wear my headphones and listen to music on the Spotify app. I do have the premium version to avoid commercial interruptions. I’ve made several playlists on my own but Spotify also offers up a “Daily Mix” of songs the algorithm thinks I might like. I listened to one of those today. And while most of the songs and artists are familiar, sometimes I hear something completely out of the blue that resonates enough that I’ll actually stop and open the app to see what I’m hearing. That happened twice this morning and both times the artist was John Prine. Now, I had a vague recollection of that name but had never been a fan and don’t really recall knowingly listening to his music before. So, to be wowed twice in one walk was pretty impressive. I was sad to read in the link above that he died of a COVID-related illness last April. Rest in Peace!

The songs I liked were Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody and Hello In There. Give them a listen if you are so inclined.

A song that didn’t come up on the playlist today but came to mind as I walked along the highway and provided the title for this post is an old favorite from the Flying Burrito Brothers.

White Line Fever a sickness born down deep inside my soul
White Line Fever the years keep flying by like a high line pole
The wrinkles in my forehead show the miles I’ve put behind me
They continue to remind me how fast I’m growing old
Guess I’ll die with this fever in my soul

I wonder just what makes a man keep pushing on
Why must I keep on singing this old highway song
I’ve been from coast to coast a 100 times or more
I haven’t found one place that I ain’t been before
White Line Fever a sickness born down deep inside my soul
White Line Fever the years keep flying by like a high line pole