Goodness, what an adventure. It all started two years ago when my husband, Mike, agreed with me that hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains out West would be a great idea, especially in the fall, before the snows came. We signed up with a small group hiking tour, and had a great time of it - the tour arranged for us to stage out of a nice family hotel, and they shuttle-vanned us to different hiking trails each day - a couple of guides with us, lots of learning about the geology, botany, and history of the area. And the stars - my goodness, the stars at night were nothing like what we usually see on the citified East Coast!
Oh, and I'm Lisa. Mike and I have been married a couple of decades, just enough to have launched our chicks out of the nest and be enjoying the recaptured freedom, not enough to be retired yet, but doing ok with a good long term plan for that, what with each of us bringing in enough to combine for a very comfortable lifestyle, with vacations we plan well in advance and thrive on.
The Sierras was one of those, and we hiked every day, drank good California wines in the evenings, and slept well - ok, sometimes we slept well after making love in the quasi-haze of that wine and the fresh air and the time away from work.
One of our guides was named Jim, a nice guy I'll have to admit I hardly noticed. He was younger than Mike and I by about a decade, and while we all met, he was just one of the group leaders as far as I was concerned, until one night when Mike mentioned him.
That day, we'd hiked along a trail the tour knew well and had planned, but it had rained the day before and no one really knew what the conditions were. We'd gone about half way up the planned trail and stopped for the requisite lunch. Jim said he wanted to go scout out the trail up ahead, to see if it was still clear, or maybe if it had been washed out Since the tour was really adamant about not hiking alone, and since Mike and I rarely wanted lunch - a granola bar and some water was usually enough for us - Mike volunteered to go along with Jim (maintaining the tour mandate about not hiking alone, even for guides). They disappeared while the rest of us ate the sandwiches the tour provided. After about 45 minutes, the two of them returned, proclaimed the trail clear, and we all hauled off for the rest of the afternoon on that trail, as planned.
To clarify, I'm 5'4", 120 lbs, brown hair, brown eyes, slim, modest breasts and an ok ass, I think. Mike is six feet tall, 180 pounds, brown hair, great blue eyes, and with a nice chest of hair that's great to snuggle into. From what I could tell, Jim was probably about 5'8", in better shape than Mike maybe, thanks to being in the business of outdoorsy stuff - light brown hair, sort of hazel eyes, well tanned from all his time in the sun.
That night, Mike seemed restless, and I asked him if he was ok. He said yes, that he was just counting his blessings that we were together. Then he continued, relaying the conversation he'd had with Mike, after my assuring him that I'd keep it confidential, as if I needed to do that.
He said that while they hiked, Jim asked him about us, in a "how'd you two meet?" sort of conversational way, and after Mike told him about our first blind date and subsequent whirlwind romance, marriage, kids and such, Jim commented that Mike was really lucky to have found me, and that Jim hoped he'd be able to be so fortunate someday. That in turn led to Jim's telling Mike about the lady he'd been with for some years (no kids), except for the past year she'd been more and more irrational, downright schizo, and Jim wasn't sure he could put up with her wild emotional swings, from affection to bitterness and acrimony, any longer. He went into the issues, which I won't recount here, but it all made me sympathize with Jim. Mike was at a loss for what to do or say, as Jim vented. Mike finally suggested Jim might suggest they both go to an endocrinologist to get a full workup and see if either of them had some hormonal imbalance or something, since Jim had said his ladyfriend had rejected outright any suggestion of her going to a counselor or psychologist, much less psychiatrist.
Mike felt badly for Jim, and said that they really hit it off, and that he was flattered that Jim had felt comfortable enough to talk, that it seemed he'd needed to get stuff off his chest. Mike was both amazed at the somewhat sudden confidence Jim had shared (since guys don't usually get that close so quickly), and he also felt that the sudden closer friendship meant he was somehow responsible to help Jim out if the occasion arose. We agreed that he didn't need to meddle, just be there for Jim, even from way across the country.
For the rest of the vacation, things were very predictable - fun, good exercise, good sleep, great stars - and when we finished up, we got an email from the tour group offering those of us who wanted to share our emails and keep in touch. Mike and I did, and so did most of the others, and so did Jim. When we left, Mike told Jim that he should hike the Appalachians if he got the chance, that they were very different but provided great hiking and camping, and to look us up if he ever got back East as well - sort of a typical farewell after the vacation conversation. Since there had been no further personal conversations between the two of them, I thought nothing more about it at the time.
It was months later that Mike and I had planned our usual spring vacation in the Appalachians. Mike had a college friend who had inherited a cabin in the mountains. He'd fixed it up over the years, gladly let us use it gratis, and it was perfect for us to have our annual week's "campout" getaway (I don't camp without hot showers!). For several years, we'd taken the kids there with us, and then they finished high school and we would go by ourselves while they were at university. We also made it a point to leave it better than we found it - sometimes contributing a new small appliance, sometimes a bit of furniture, as well as being super clean when we used it.
The cabin was out in the boonies, but accessible by dirt road up off the highway, and it had its own well water, its own electrical generator, propane tank for heat and kitchen - it wasn't luxurious by any measure, but had everything we needed. It was on a big tract of land adjacent to a state park that gave us easy access through the woods to a number of hiking trails, and there was even a great swimming hole just this side of the state park boundary that we could go to if we felt like it, and if the weather was warm enough. Sometimes it wasn't, and that was ok; but sometimes it was warm and clear enough that we'd go down (maybe a quarter mile from the cabin) after hiking, or on the way to the cabin from a long hike. We could just shed our clothes and frolic in the nude with each other, the occasional birdsong, and the wonderful outdoors. Sometimes we'd find evidence of others having been there (footprints, once a t-shirt, but no trash), but it seemed whoever used it respected its privacy and pristine setting, so all was good.
That year, we'd arranged to spend a week there in late May, before the hiking trails got more populated with the school's out crowd, yet after the weather got warm. We were checking the weather reports, wondering if the week would bring rain and mess up our hopes for clear skies and dry trails.
Then Mike got a call from Jim. Jim had recalled our invitation for him to look us up if he ever got back East. He was taking something of a Walkabout, relaying that he and his ladyfriend had finally split up, and he was traveling to clear his head, come to grips with all that. Mike wondered if Jim needed a sympathetic shoulder and felt badly that we had already planned to go off to the cabin just when Jim was coming into our area.
