How I got to the top of Lassen Peak. And fixed my broken sunglasses there!

At the top of Lassen Peak.

I wasn’t sure I could go to the top of Lassen Peak until I met Bob.

“Maybe I’ll just hike to the Grand Vista,” I told myself. “Because I should really get on the road. And I’m tired. And the top looks so far!”

Then I passed another hiker moving very slowly up the mountain.

“Have you hiked this before?” I asked as he stopped to let me pass.

“Yes, every year!” said the 77-year-old, explaining that he had been coming to the park every August, during the sweet spot when it's not too hot and not too cold, for the past few years to summit the 10,457-foot peak. “And I’m going to keep doing it until I’m 80.”

That was cool.

Because he gave me the inspiration to not stop until I reached the top. If Bob can do it, I told myself, I can, too.

Even cooler, though, were the two girls who inspired me to hike even further than Bob.

“That’s where I stop,” he said of the last 200 feet or so of scrambling up rocks, many of them loose, to reach the very tippy top of the peak, located about a quarter of a mile from a nice flat area with amazing views where many of our other fellow hikers were happy to stop, too.

“The most amazing is when you can see Mt. Shasta,” another hiker told me on his way down from the top, explaining that I was not far from what he called “the best sign ever,” since it announced that you were only a half of a mile from the summit.

And after I passed that glorious half-mile sign, then stood at the ridge up top, soaking in the views and gazing at Mt. Shasta, which looked like a big cupcake with vanilla icing that I could reach out and grab, I started to think that I might have gone far enough. 

But then I saw two parents leading their young girls down the rocks from the summit.

“Hey, if those girls can do it, I can, too!” I decided, marching on and meeting the mom along the flat path between the ridge and rocks as she held the hand of her youngest daughter, who appeared to be about six.

“How was it?” I asked, admitting that I wasn't going to try the last section until I saw her daughters coming down. And as she began describing the difficulty of the “scramble” up, my sunglasses broke in half, one lens and ear arm falling to the ground.

“Curses!” she said, which is a good swear word to choose if you’re holding the hand of a first-grader, and I said, “Maybe my sunglasses are trying to tell me I’ve gone far enough!”

But soon I put my glasses back together and secured the broken lens with my hair band — one that I luckily found the day before and picked up because I had forgotten to bring one from home. Yes, the trail provides! — and decided to trudge on after watching the woman’s second daughter scrambling down the rocky peak with her father.

Fixed my broken sunglasses!

And while the little yellow hairband, likely belonging to another young girl, was a bit too small for my hair, it was the perfect size for securing my broken sunglasses, especially since I still needed to see out of them. And Lassen Peak is not a hike you want to do without sunglasses, especially on a bright, clear day with the sun shining off the white rocks.

Once at the top, I chatted with a couple who were enjoying the view and a celebratory beer, which the male half declared “a must!” before tackling the most difficult part of all: heading back down the steep, rocky “trail” on very shaky legs. Thank gosh for my trusty walking stick, which saved me more than once.

And speaking of that stick, it is now adorned with my first summit medallion, a sweet little souvenir sold at the park visitor’s center that luckily my friend told me about, otherwise I might never have bought it.

Because now I can look at it every day, with every next step I take with that stick, and remember not only how I got to the top of Lassen Peak, but all the cool people I met on the way.

That is very cool. 

See more of Lassen Peak in this video:

Walking across the Delaware to New Jersey!

And ss cute and useful as that little yellow hairband was, however, my favorite find on my travels was the ball cap waiting for me on a park bench in Philadelphia, just when I needed it most: while walking around Philly a few years ago without a hat on my first visit there because I didn’t think to bring one. I knew nothing about the city’s weather and planned for days much cooler than the 80-degree heatwave in May! 

But luckily on my first day of walking everywhere in the blazing sun I found a pretty cute, pinkish hat just sitting on a park bench near the Liberty Bell.  So I washed it in the bathroom sink with some soap and water and it became mine. Park benches provide!

Another cool find in Philly was a woman making “hot, fresh donuts!”

Movies I saw in July: Obsession, The Odyssey, Dead Man Down

Both movies I saw in the theater last month featured one-track minds: The first being chosen by a man determined to get home against all odds, Gods and enemies; the second being forced upon a woman against her will and knowledge:

Obsession. Grade: A.

This movie was better than I expected, a feat that was nearly impossible given all the hype it received, and one that was achieved nearly entirely because of the acting by Inde Navarette.

Her perfect casting proves that you can take even the most familiar and predictable story, say someone being granted a wish they soon deeply regret, and make it seem fresh and cool because you have the right people telling it.

Because this movie’s punch could only land if delivered by a woman we believed was possessed, an affliction Navarette embodied by not only melting her face from happy to sad to angry and back again in seconds, but by often swirling all three emotions together in one bubbling cauldron to create one of the most impressive, and truly unsettling, performances I have ever seen. 

As for the movie’s message, I saw it is as a lesson in the dangers of infatuation, particularly the ones we unleash when trying to control it. Because the only thing more impossible than trying to choose who we fall in love with is trying to control who else falls in love with us.

But I certainly don’t blame the young man who tries to have Navarette’s Nikki return his crush, because haven’t we all ached for someone who doesn’t love us back, wishing there was a way to make the person we crave feel the same about us?

I certainly have, and am incredibly grateful no one can buy a One Wish Willow that actually works. Though if you know of a store that carries them, I do need one for the next time I have to watch a smart woman lose all sense over a guy that everyone else can see is a total dirtbag. 

Hey, maybe that can be Navarette’s next movie: Cloak & Dirtbag: A woman suddenly discovers that the man she loves is really a dirtbag hiding all his bad qualities under a magic cloak. So she enlists her friends to find the source of the magic and disarm it, saving the world from Dirtbag Blindness forevermore.

The Odyssey, Grade: A+.

These days I groan if a movie is even over 90 minutes, let alone almost three hours. But I eagerly went to this opus because it was made by Christopher Nolan, since the last film of his I saw, Oppenheimer, was even longer, but I was so happily absorbed I never checked the time once.

And while I will admit the beginning of Odyssey did drag a bit for me, once we get to the Cyclops I was all in, loving my time with Samantha Morton, John Leguzamo and even Robert Pattison, who I sincerely hope loves playing sleazeballs as much as we loving watching him portray them.

But by far the highlight for me was Nolan's realistic version of the Trojan horse, showing how it would really go down with dozens of men crammed into a horse statue for days, pissing and pooping all over each other, then barely able to walk once they finally were freed from it.

The only changes I would make are to swap the characters played by Anne Hathaway and Charlize Theron, because I think Theron would have made a much more compelling queen; and, more importantly, to switch out Tom Holland for someone able to exude a bit more anger and desperation as the son left behind by father he never met. Heck, even Pattison could have done the tortured son almost as well as his delicious dirtbag. Holland might be great as Peter Parker, but he was a bit too bland for that role.

Movies I didn't watch in July:

Dead Man Down: A DVD rented from the library, stopped after only 9 minutes and 40 seconds. Maybe we would have liked it better if we stuck around until Noomi Rapace showed up, but, alas, we didn't.

Movies I saw in June: Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Death of Robin Hood, Disclosure Day.