blows no good. The other day, somehow or another, I got spoofed, and someone used my email to send to all my damned contact list.

Sucks, and chasing down all the crap was annoying.

But it prompted a phone call from an old friend, and that made it all worthwhile. See, the old friend is one of my hunting companions from Africa, and he’s going to be in country in a couple weeks, where I hope to hook up with him. He arranged a hunt this year, which was expensive and difficult, but he has all the connections and locations now, so next year might be a good deal easier all around. And he wants me to come with him.

Last time, I had been having some real serious knee issues, so I had surgery to resolve them, and because I was and am the biggest member of the group, they were concerned about my ability to deal with the hardship of the trek-we would be going through some difficult terrain and I’m no longer 18. Well, at the time, I was 49.

So they arranged for a hike stateside so they could see what I could do. We did a little 8 mile daytrek through some really thick crap, and midway through, the leader of the group had an incident where his blood sugar crashed, and had to be rescued. (Well, we poured canned pineapple down him until he felt better again)

See, I was as concerned about my ability as they were, so I tried to do something about it. I bought a MOLLE pack off ebay, and loaded it with stuff. I rolled ammo up in socks and filled the pack until I could barely lift the damned thing onto my shoulders. And I walked. At first I walked around the block here, which is a shade under a mile, as the GPS puts it. I started doing two miles, and then I went to the Monon trail and started doing five miles a day.

I’m not gonna lie to you, the pain in my recently repaired knee was ugly, and the first time I actually managed to finish five miles (I fell short the first three times) I puked and puked.

But I got to where I could finish it, and I did, well, almost two months of that prior to setting foot on the dark continent. It was well worth it.

It still didn’t prepare me for the terrain. There were places where the water was a foot deep and the reeds and papyrus dragged at your boots as you tried to slog through it, it made your feet feel like they weighed 300 lbs. The worm fields were horrible as well, broad plains where the actions of worms left a coarse and crackly surface that was designed to twist an ankle and often did. Only the support of some really good boots saved my butt there.

At present I’m prepping for some upcoming shows. I don’t “Work out” but I try to increase my activity ahead of certain events- like SHOT, or IMTS, or whatever. So I am moving more, doing more, trying to be in a bit better shape so I am not incapacitated by pain when I arrive at the various activities. And if Africa gets put back on my calendar, it’s going to mean backpack time again.