May 5 (Saturday): Image #125

"Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us." ~Oscar Wilde

Have you ever smelled something that triggered powerful memories? I'm getting ready for a 10 day outdoor leadership course with Johns Hopkins, and thought I would wash my backpack before I left. (I bought this pack in 1998, and have never washed it). The bathtub was quickly filled with Sierra Nevada pulverized granite, sand from the Mojave deserts of Joshua Tree, Ponderosa pine needles, Marmot saliva, funky sock odor, various unknown sticky substances, Adirondack snowmelt, some assorted small rocks from Death Valley and nine years of my musky man-odor. On Saturday, I traveled around the country without ever leaving my bathroom.