After weeks of waffling over what to do w/my summer and being pretty sure Burning Man wasn't in it and tired of beer/party-centered living, I had a revelation last night after some intense Ashtanga yoga. Or I should say I awoke to it. And if I can make this bird fly, I'll go to Burning Man with you.

It all depends on the date they choose to blast Hunter Thompson's ashes out of a cannon, his parting wish. That, and if you have space in your yard/driveway to store a little BMW for three months.

Here's the concept: I just finished writing a book, the central theme of which is walking AWAY from depression, the grief of suicide, and my own proclivity toward the latter. The working title, "17 for 17." Why? Because a person commits suicide every 17 minutes in the U.S., and because a successful "AT 2000-miler" ascends the equivalent elevation of Mt. Everest 17 times.

Now, how do I follow that act and promote the book in the doing? Why, hike 1700 miles in three months from Glacier National Park at the Canadian Border south along the Continental Divide Trail, of course. Destination? Can you guess?

You guessed it. Hunter Thompson's home town of Woody Creek, Colorado, a stone's throw from the Continental Divide Trail.

It would be hard. I'd have to pull it all together in the next two weeks and hike harder and faster than I did on the AT, WAY harder! And Hunter's blastoff would hafta happen on or just before the third week of August. If I wasn't quite making it, I could always hitch the final miles and call it a valiant effort.

I would prepare a press release and send the fucker everywhere, to every media outlet that covered his death. It would say essentially that I'm hiking for the disease of depression & its frequent companion, suicide, which claims 30,000 lives a year (half that of diabetes) yet garners little of the attention given the latter, and is not, in most people's minds, considered a disease.

One of Hunter's biggest students & devotees, a sufferer of depression & a suicide-survivor, hiking his ass off over 14K-foot peaks to make it to the explosive Last Rights of a man who, though not necessarily out of depression, did blow his head off with a .45. If nothing else, it'll keep me from driving the Beemer off the edge of the Grand Canyon, an idea that unfortunately pops to mind an awful lot lately.

Nothing, not one of many options I have considered for this summer has felt right. This feels perfect. So I believe that the timing will also go perfectly.

Question is, do you feel lucky? I mean, can I leave my car with you all that time? I would also need to essentially launch from your place, last minute prepping there and bussing north from there.

And then we go to Burning Man!

I await your answer.

In the meantime, I'm gonna sleep on it, really search my soul tonight for the strength to pull this off.

Your loco amigo,
Rick McKinney