Well here we are again back from the mountains

Back from the great stone amphitheater where nobody’s clapping except maybe the river

We woke up early (perhaps too early) like pilgrims with a mortgage and drove three hours out of Madera

Kings Canyon, beautiful Kings Canyon!

they say Muir called it a rival to Yosemite and old John was right, though “rival” is a funny word for two things that were never fighting, just standing there being enormous while we walked with our sandwiches and water bladders feeling small and grateful for it

We took the trail from Road’s End which is a good name for a trail, a good name for anything really

five miles alongside the Kings River which doesn’t care what year it is or what’s on the news, it just keeps talking the same wet sentence over and over in a language older than English, even older than complaining

my wife and I walked slow which is the only sane speed for a river or a marriage and we didn’t try to finish anything just tried to be there which turns out to be the whole trick

here’s some pictures, here’s some video, poor flat souvenirs of a thing you had to smell and feel to understand

but tell me if you’ve walked this trail before tell me what the water said to you, I’m collecting testimonies from anyone the river’s talked to lately