Improving our "value"...

Day 237
10-30-2006
Started: Virginia City, NV
Finished: Mt. Rose, NV
Today's Miles: 27.3
Total Miles: 3769.7

Waking up in a cozy Virginia City home is alright! John and Patty Tyson have a beautiful home and a fantastic view of Nevada to go with it. We say a view of Nevada because on a clear day you can literally see halfway across the state to the high peaks of the Toiyabe Range. The distinguished dome known as the "sugarloaf" sits directly to the east off their back deck and the Six Mile Canyon that houses "sugarloaf" drops off giving John and Patty a wonderful view of the sunrise coming up over the ridges and valleys of Nevada. When we came downstairs this morning John was sitting at the dinning room table, that strategically sits right in front of the windows facing to the east, reading the local newspaper and a few minutes after we sat down to join him a fabulous bright orange ball of fire crept up over the horizon. Being a journalist John keeps a close watch on current events and it is obvious that he is passionate about his work. Patty, a teacher, was preparing to head off to school, but kindly made sure to make Sheri her morning fix of coffee and set out a couple of cups of yogurt for us to enjoy for breakfast. After Patty left for work John loaded us into his truck and dropped us back off where he had picked us up yesterday. We truly enjoyed our time with John and Patty and we spent most of our morning hike talking about how wonderful they were to be around. We discussed how nice it was to see two people who are obviously in love sharing their lives with each other. We talked about our conversations with John discussing his journalism, and his trains, and his ranching and we admired how passionate he was with both his profession and his hobbies. The moment we shared with John that will probably stick with us the longest was a conversation about "Value". John related what we were accomplishing with the idea of improving our "Value". As we talked about that concept today it really sank in that while we are not in any way being "paid" for walking across the country, to be quite frank our bank account is continuing to shrink as the Journey goes on, but we are most definitely increasing our "Value". "Value" is the full sum of the whole person, and it's not a financial measure that determines if a person is of any "Value". If we take all of the highs and lows, our successes, our hardships, our personal interactions and all of the life lessons that this Journey has exposed us to and add them up there is no way that this hike and all of the wonderful moments it has provided us hasn't increased our "Value". Our trail conversation about "value" got us most of the way from Virginia City up and over our first climb of the day and at least half way into the Valley that sat between us and our last major climb into high elevation, the Sierra Nevada Mountains! The Sierra Nevada's have been on our minds for the past few days because we've seen an extended forecast that shows some wet weather coming in for the second half of the week. Everyone we talk to seems to know that the Sierra Nevada's can be a tough place to be when a storm comes rolling through. We spent the entire second half of our day today taking one uphill step after another. We climbed out of the Valley and made our way to the edge of Mt. Rose. The rugged mountains that make up the Sierra Nevada Range are very impressive and we might even say intimidating. We are camped tonight at an elevation that is close to 8500 feet and the wind is showing off its power. We had to anchor the tent down to keep it from taking off like a kite. We are both quite excited that the high peaks all around us have very little snow on them. We don't want to jinx ourselves, but we just might have won the race with winter. We know things can change quick up here though, so we are mentally preparing ourselves for anything Mother Nature wants to throw our way. Tomorrow is Halloween and we have been discussing what we should do to celebrate the occasion. We've decided that we want to be Californian's, and we figure the best way to pretend to be a Californian would be to actually be in California, so tomorrow we will head for the state line, our final state line! It's amazing, Delaware seems like it was so long ago, and yet in some ways it seems like just days ago that we had our toes in the Atlantic Ocean. The many miles we've put in since walking up that distant beach have been nothing but good to us, and we will always cherish every step. We will never take for granted having been able to embark on such an amazing adventure, and know that this Journey will always be one of our most "Valued" experiences!

Your Friends on the ADT,
Randy and Sheri
Follow our Journey at www.treckusa.com