Journey to Dreams: Ramblings while bored

It's another quiet day at work as it often is for me. Sometimes I feel guilty as everyone else is usually very busy as there are so many events going on. I guess that is a problem of staying in a job for so long is that it becomes so easy and I've had years to streamline and perfect the processes.2 years 7 months 24 days until retirement. I really am looking forward to it now since I have a goal set and a bucket list trip that will hopefully be as amazing as I think it will be.

Moving on to upcoming trips I hopefully will be purchasing tickets for Alaska soon. The price for the flight to Fairbanks dropped a bit today, but the return is still a bit much. I'm hoping by next week it will drop in price too. I have the rail reservation changed to Fantu from the ex-friend that weirded out on me and cancelled. She is so excited. We are going shopping at the Columbia Outlet on Memorial Day to get her outfitted for the trip. It's difficult as a native Texan to think that it could be in the 40's in August up there. I shouldn't be surprised though as I've dealt with 40's in August in Cloudcroft NM, and 27 degrees in mid-September while camping in the Tetons. I plan on doing a bit of cold weather camping near Cloudcroft/Ruidoso next year and probably a few more times before I travel to Nepal as the guesthouse bedrooms are not heated and can be below freezing overnight. I think that is what makes me the most nervous is sleeping in the cold for two weeks. I've never done more than four nights in a row.

So I was just looking at a world map. Nepal is closer to the equator than Gatesville. It's not a great distance Nepal sits just south of the 30 degree north parallel while Gatesville is just a bit north of it. I just had it in my head it was further north than that.

Nepal sits on the north-northeastern border of India, Gatesville sits pretty much centered in Texas. I believe Dallas is marked on the map - we would be Southeast of there by about 140 miles I think. I guess this explains the climate there. Their summers are warm and muggy with a lot of rain, it is referred to as Monsoon season instead of summer. April and October are the prime trekking months as temperatures are somewhat mild and the rains aren't constant. The trails are crowded though as there will be almost two to three times as many hikers in those two months as in any of the others. May and September are also fairly good but if the rains come early or stay late it can really spoil the trip. November starts to get cold, but the days are generally sunny and dry and the trails aren't as crowded. This is why I plan on going in November. I don't do crowds. I barely do people.

A lot of people like going in April and May as that is when the Base Camp is filled with Everest Expeditions. The climbers spend all of April and the first half of May acclimating to the high altitude. The last two weeks of May is when the do their ascent of Everest. This year Nepal issued 450 permits to climbers, Tibet issues up to another 300. That is way too many people on that mountain over that 2 week period. I see it as too many people on the trail plus all the goods being transported by Yaks from Lukla to Base camp. It just makes it way to crowded and busy for me to not get stressed. It's great for the people that want to see all the activity and like the buzz that is generated but I'm going for the scenery, the mountains and the Sherpa culture.