Boots McFarland
When Howard and I joined Larry Hillberg on his Saturday morning radio show on KVMR (89.5) in Nevada City one of the listeners was local resident, Geolyn Carvin aka Boots McFarland. So she came by the studio and joined us.
Boots captures her PCT experience in drawings, some of which we have published on this website in years past. She recently published "20 Years on the Trail" which blends stories from her time on the PCT and other trails with her images. Here's an example:
It was a warm spring morning, the Saturday before Easter. My friend and I were hiking on (ironically) Boney Ridge in the Santa Monica Mountains . . . We had started our descent and the trail was in poor shape, with ruts several feet deep cutting down the center of our path. The best we could do was walk along the side, sometimes going straight down the slope. With it being sandstone the traction was horrible. My feet slid out from under me and I went down, catching myself with my right hand, something we've all done but this time I hit hard. When I lifted my hand it didn't look right. I knew that I had broken something. I think I sort of went into shock looking at it.
Luckily my friend was very level headed and had me put my head between my knees, and I had some ginger candy. She made a sling out of a shirt and told me as soon as I felt well enough to hike -- we needed to get down the mountain. It was five miles back to the trailhead. By the time we arrived at the car my spirits were back up though of course my arm hurt and just looked plain weird.
Long story short I spent six weeks in a cast and had to do everything with my left hand (and I'm right handed). I felt bad to not draw my Weekly Boots cartoons to send out so I decided to try drawing with my left hand. Here is what came out.
It was good therapy to see the humor in my situation. Surprisingly, some people didn't seem to notice the difference.
