The Cactus Eaters: How I Lost My Mind-and Almost Found Myself-on the Pacific Crest Trail (P.S. Series) Book

Deserts and DeH Water

Dan White is an excellent travel writer, and I wish that he would continue to travel and write about his adventures. He does not have to take long hikes; instead, he could take a car, a bus, or even a cab and then tell us about it. It is just that I am so impressed by his writing, which oozes with his charm and wit. His writing is also eloquent, and his exaggerations are funny.
Now for the story: He and his new girlfriend, Allison, decide to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, but they are unprepared. First, they over pack, and a man they know, helps them repack. "Why the kite?" he asks. Well, they get on the trail, and they get lost, but he does not know how to use a compass, and he does not wish Allison to give it a try. Finally, he reluctantly gives it to her, and she figures it out. Then their new water filter will not filter the water out of mud. Next, he realized that the amount of water that he is carrying is too heavy, so behind Allison's back, he pours out about a third of their water, and then they find themselves without water, he confesses. Allison is upset with him, feels she can no longer trust him. I am sure that what had happened next would have made him very trustworthY: She finds a prickly pear cactus and tells him that they can get water from it. Only he does not realize its dangers and pops its fruit into his mouth. Now, he is suffering from the small hairy spines that are on the cacti, or, were on it. . My friend Julie and I had traveled in Mexico, and when she learned that you could eat the fruit of the prickly pear cacti, she picked one with her fingers, and they became full of spines. The guide at the ruins that we were visiting, told her to run her fingers through her hair several times. The spines were gone. Maybe Allison should have run her hair over his tongue.

As for the water, I have a solution, but it has yet to be invented. It would be called DeH Water for dehydrated water. You would put the DEH water in a sealed bag, and when you needed it you pour it into a container, and it would then collect water out of the atmosphere. Mark my word, I have thought of things in the past that someone finally invented. This, too, will be invented. The hard part is getting the DeH water into a bag. Also, remember, man invents things out of need, and mankind is carrying too heavy of a load.

As time goes, they get tired, and Dan gets sarcastic or snarky, whichever.
It can happen to the best of us. I am surprised that I am still friends with Julie after our travels. So, I did not hold this against Dan, after all, they had gotten along for months.

I thought it funny that she called him Fish Body, and he called her Rat Face. When I was a kid, maybe eleven years old, my brother Bill and I called each other names. My clue here is, "when I was eleven." Bill or Billy, as he was called then, named me Platypus, and I called him a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. That lasted a few hours.

They met crazy people on the trail, well, maybe they were not so crazy, but he made them out to be colorful. Gingerbread Man was one of them. He walked the trail at record speed, and when he left them, he began leaving notes for them, giving them directions to water, and he also marked the trail with rocks if the markers were gone. Then there was Dr. John who was not Dan's cup of tea. He did not like his potty talk. If Dr. John had to go to the bathroom, he would tell them about it, "I am going to go into the woods now, and I will be sitting for a very long time." For this reason, he would not allow him to travel with them. Yet, Dan's book contains potty talk for all the world to see. He even talked about Allison tampons. Speaking of which, when I was seven years old my father drove us from our home in Shandon, California to Paso Robles in order to get groceries. Then they left Billy and I in the car while they went into Wilcox's Appliance Store. I found a box of Kotex, and began spelling out loud, K-o-t-e-x. Billy told me to be quiet, so I spelled it again but louder. And again. Come to think of it, Bill is still a very proper person. Several years ago, my sister Karen and I were at a restaurant in Paso Robles with him and other family members. He was embarrassed by Karen and I because we were giggling. We just ignored him. Sometimes that is all you can do.