You never really plan on Plan B.

When I told Michael a couple of months ago that my idea of a perfect camping trip would be to backpack with only my own gear and food (OK, I’ll take the med kit, too) and some experienced packhorses schlepping the rest (stoves, tents, tarps, group food, cookware, horse doctoring box, etc., ad almost infinitum), I didn’t expect that, today,  he’d be doing exactly that up at the Kern River, and I’d be at home trying to get the upper hand on a tenacious cough and cold.

It’s more than a disappointment to me, for two primary reasons. First, time with Michael during the school year, as for all faculty couples, is a rare and wonderful thing. Under Sierra skies, hiking with the dog and horse, rustling up a campfire supper together, talking until sleep takes over after everyone’s tucked away–a little slice of heaven, 6 days/5 nights. Second, this: on the 9-Toad trek are four seniors, three of whom I’ve shared English class with multiple times or camped with (Shelby, Hutton, J-J), and one I was eager to know better (Brad). Their time in our 24/7 company is being ticked off in days; this particular chance won’t come around a second time. (1974, Seals and Crofts, Unborn Child album: “We may never pass this way again”)

We drove for six hours, unfolded ourselves from truck and ‘ burban in the Jerkey Meadows trailhead lot, and got right to work for departing: off-loaded the backpacks, laid out the mantees and sorted out the food to balance evenly in the panniers, tacked up the two horses. Everyone was on a last outhouse run when, off to the side, I told Hutton and Shelby  that they’d just have to figure out a way to join us next year, because I intended not to catch sick on Family Weekend and to execute fully our original Plan A. They agreed they’d do it: “I’m out on May 1!” Shelby chirped, and then the two of them set to scheming some of the details.

Five minutes later, I’d hugged Michael goodbye, told the kids to be safe and look out for each other, given Guilla and Colby a kiss (presuming no cross-species germ-transmission), taken a group pic, and, finally, watched them march up the trail towards their first night’s rest.

I hadn’t taken two switchbacks on the drive back down, though, before the obvious hit: whatever we might pull off in a year, it will never be the first realization of that first-blush notion, with this particular set of kids in territory fresh to Michael. Plan A will become Plan B, or, at very best, possibly Plan A2, and more likely, Plan D, E or F. I hear my voice in an advisee-advisor check-in of a couple of weeks back: “Listen. If this doesn’t work out, something else absolutely will. Something you didn’t even think about!  It’s really all good.”

Time to take my own advice and be OK with being sidelined this time. Yet even as I lie low today, my imagination conjures  up a healthier, happier Thursday night, when, back at the trailhead, I’ll lay out my pad and sleeping bag in the bed of the truck, waiting for dawn and the arrival of the troops, ending where they started, ready to climb aboard and head home to Thacher.

Til then, at least we’re all looking at the same stars.