Somewhere there is a parallel universe…

In this universe Denise and I are at our ideal weight, AJ is no longer a toddler to whom we have limited communication, we are independently wealthy, and we travel the world as independent nomads. As we travel this parallel universe one of the spots we would travel to would be the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT).

A 2650 mile journey, it starts in Campo, Mexico and ends at Manning Provincial Park, BC, Canada. It goes through 60 major mountain passes, descends into 19 major canyons, and passes by over 1000 lakes, traverses 3 national monuments, crosses 7 national parks, fords through 24 national parks and blazes through 33 federally mandated wilderness areas. You might think this is impressive, but surprisingly it is only the second longest trail in America (bet you can’t guess the longest). Soon the PCT will become the 3rd longest trail when the North Country National Scenic Trail (NCNST) is finished (the NCNST will be 4000 miles when finished). In our parallel universe we would travel these three trails and the Appalachian Trail as well.

You may think this parallel universe doesn’t exist, but that is where you are wrong. It does exist (just not for me), and to prove it we took pictures of one its inhabitants.

Meet Rick Delong:
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A 32 yr old denizen of JohnnyP’s parallel universe, we picked him up off the side of the backside of the 138. He looked like a hitchhiker to me, but Denise told me he was my cousin (Aunt Angie confirmed this so it must be true) so we invited him into our house. Only he didn’t go straight to our house, he went straight to Casa de Tony’s. After eating an entire plate of Enchilladas Rancheras (with extra sour cream), a whole order of ice cream nachos, and a large orange juice; he became Tony’s favorite customer in one night. You know he came from a parallel universe; because in this one most people would be uber-tired after eating all that food and hiking 31 miles in the desert, but Rick proceeded to stay up all night on the internet writing in Russian (must be a secret code to keep us normal people from learning their secrets).
After resting a day Rick made us pancakes in the morning and for that Denise took him to the post office in Wrightwood:


Rick was so overjoyed with this package that he gave Denise some of his toilet paper (things obviously have a different value in the parallel world) as a token of his appreciation. We were determined to find out more about this parallel universe, so we sent in a spy (AJ) right before he departed back on the trail, but he was soon caught:

Normally, the AJ stowaway trick works, but when the container your trying to hide in is soo small, not even AJ can hide in it. Rick’s pack only weighs 20 pounds full:

Our plans thwarted, we released our cousin Rick back into the parallel universe (please note the use of the umbrella, there is no rain predicted in this area for at least 4 months):
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Rick is back in the parallel universe and we are back in the normal universe. It was fun, but I have to say I am glad I am at home eating Pizza (today is National Pizza Party Day) and not sleeping up at Cleghorn Mountain (can we say WINDY). Anyhow, I hear Rick might be making another crossing into our universe in Bakersfield, look for him there. As for me, I have to continue with my work. The paperwork really stacked up, I think it is going to take until August to get caught up (which conveniently is when I am scheduled for my next vacation).”