An Interesting Journey
I’m lying in bed thinking how much I sometimes hate my longtime friends Brandon and Steve. I hate them because it’s seven o’clock in the morning on a Saturday, my cell phone is ringing, and it’s them calling, and no one should ever call me at seven A.M. I push a button on my phone, sending them to the deepest darkest bowels of the Sprint voicemail system. My cold, cruel voicemail greeting. Monotone and unhappy, it’s definitely not an inviting voice to hear when you’re trying to get a hold of someone. I guess that was on purpose, because if I never get another voicemail message for the rest of my life, I’ll die a happy man. It must be the five-day work week, and the part-time school that’s been getting me down lately. The routine of having the same schedule week in, and week out. Driving to school, driving to work, driving home. Even the light at the end of the tunnel, the weekends, seem to turn into work again, and free time spent at home is sitting on the couch, away from the heat, away from crowds. I feel like maybe the urban sprawl of Los Angeles may be gnawing at me a bit too much, penetrating and poisoning my core. “Get in your car right now and drive the six hours to meet us in Yosemite!” I hear Brandon yelling enthusiastically from San Francisco when I reluctantly play back the voicemail message. “We’re gonna do some camping, and climbing, maybe Half Dome. Call me back!” I haven’t visited Yosemite National Park since senior year of high school, but I’ve wanted to hike to the top of Half Dome ever since a girl, whom I secretly wanted to date after working with her in Los Angeles, described her Half Dome hike to me one day. When she then showed me