Another Campfire Story from Joshua Tree: The Travis Walton Abduction

 Out here in the desert, stories have a way of traveling differently.

They don’t rush.
They don’t shout.
They drift.

Passed from one voice to another, across campfires, across late-night drives, across long silences where the stars feel closer than the ground beneath your feet.

Tonight’s story is one of those.

The case of Travis Walton.

In 1975, Walton was part of a logging crew in Arizona. As they were driving home one evening, they claimed to see a strange, glowing object hovering above the road. Against everyone’s instincts, Walton got out of the truck and approached it.

Then, according to all accounts, he was struck by a beam of light.

And he disappeared.

For five days, Walton was missing. His coworkers were interrogated, suspected of murder, and publicly scrutinized. Polygraph tests were administered. The media swarmed. The story spiraled.

And then… he came back.

Walton claimed he had been taken aboard a craft. That he encountered beings. That he was examined. That he was confused, disoriented, and afraid. He said he didn’t understand what had happened to him — only that it had happened.

Whether you believe his story or not, the ripple it created is undeniable.

This wasn’t just a UFO sighting.
It was a missing person case.
With witnesses.
With timelines.
With consequences.

That’s why it’s lasted.

Out here in Joshua Tree, stories like this hit differently. The desert already feels like a place where the rules thin out. Where silence stretches. Where people have always told stories to explain what they couldn’t name.

And that’s what this is really about.

Not proving what Travis Walton saw.
Not debunking what he said.
But asking why stories like this stay alive.

Why we keep returning to them.
Why they still get told around fires.
Why they still make us look up.

Maybe it’s because these stories don’t offer answers.

They offer possibilities.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

This has been another campfire story from Joshua Tree.

If you stayed this long, thanks for sitting with it.

The Long Way Back - Week 1

 A personal journal on health, discipline, and starting again at 47.

Not another “New Year, New Me” fitness post.

But it actually is… sort of.

This is going to be more of a journal than a declaration. A record of how getting in shape, then getting out of shape, is — well — cyclical.

I’m 47 years old now. This isn’t about aesthetics.

Sure, we all want to look good at any age. But at this stage of life, the margin for error when it comes to taking care of ourselves is much narrower than it was in our 20s and 30s. You don’t get to ignore things for as long anymore.

I’ve tried almost everything under the sun to lose weight. And to be fair, plenty of those paths worked. I lost the weight. But I could never keep it off.

So at this point, it feels less like finding the perfect plan and more like choosing a modality I can realistically stick with — for as long as I can — this time.

I’m also starting to understand why the cycle doesn’t end. The traps. The shortcuts. The mental loopholes. The way motivation fades once the initial progress slows. Yo-yo dieting isn’t just physical — it’s psychological.

So the first order of business for me is honesty and accountability.

That means looking directly at the excuses for why I fall off the wagon and the motivations for why I keep getting back on the horse.

For now, I’ll boil everything down to one number.

Yesterday, I weighed 270 pounds.

I haven’t even started counting calories yet. At this weight, you can make one or two small changes and the scale will move quickly — mostly from water weight. And that’s okay.

Case in point: yesterday I decided to cut back on carbs slightly. I didn’t eat steamed rice with my meal. That’s it. Nothing dramatic.

This morning I woke up at 268.9 pounds.

That’s about a pound of water weight. But you know what it really is? A small step forward — and momentum matters.

For this first week, that’s all I’m focusing on.

Two simple things:

• Being mindful of protein intake — aiming for 130 grams per day  

• Getting 10,000 steps wherever I can  

It’s cold, the days are short, and Joshua Tree isn’t exactly begging you to go for long walks right now — so a lot of those steps will happen on the treadmill indoors. That’s fine.

That’s it. No grand promises. No overhaul.

Slow and steady worked for me before.  

So that’s what I’m leaning on this time.