While steady on the trail, Fixie has a problem that keeps her from being the ultimate hiking machine: try as she might, she can’t grow a decent beard. Leg hair? No problem. Hiker Stench? She’s got it. Hiker Hunger? And how! But facial hair, well, Fixie’s beard doesn’t even come in downy or light. To fix this embarrassing problem she employed a surrogate beard to grow at the rate of her walking.
Having left Fixie at Burney Falls, Onyx and I drove up I5, roughly paralleling the next 4 or 5 weeks of the PCT, but at a much sped up pace. We arrived in Portland a little before midnight, where we promptly forgot about the whole beard thing and fell asleep. In the morning, Onyx and I flipped a coin to see who would shave. I guessed wrongly, and so, Onyx was saved from being shaved, and my own facial hair was shorn clean in order to provide a fresh start.
Over the next few days Fixie’s Hiker Beard grew at a respectable rate, not exceedingly fast, but not too slow. Half millimeter by half millimeter. I made sure to provide essential oils for growth and luxuriousness.
As I lounged away the days eating delights such as only Portland’s current food revolution can provide, Fixie’s Hiker Beard grew and grew.
A bit like the hungry hungry caterpillar, I went to farmers markets to food stands to restaurants, eating strawberries, blueberries, marionberries and even raspberries, before moving onto Pok Pok and Ruby Jewel. I gorged myself each day so that Fixie’s Hiker Beard could grow out of my nightly warm bed’s cocoon-like embrace.
Adventures in Natureculture 