Confessions of a Local Fish

DAY 3 – January 3, 2026

Sunday in the Canyon – God’s Flashlight and Makeshift Mass

The sun rose like God’s own spotlight, blasting straight into my eyes—no trees, no overhang, no mercy. I’d bivied out in the open, trusting the sleeping bag to keep the desert night from stealing my heat. It did its job, but dawn still punished me for the oversight.

Everything ached when I stirred. Legs, back, shoulders—and especially the core that had been neglected for far too long. I rolled out onto the gravel, faced the rising blaze, and paid the morning tithe: push-ups until my arms shook like faulty hydraulics, sit-ups that lit my abdomen on fire, a plank held just long enough for the burn to feel like penance.

I should have trained for this months ago. Packed smarter, pushed harder, prepared the body as thoroughly as the pack. But preparation was shortsighted—jerky, tuna, hammer, water, go. Now the wasteland is the trainer, and it charges interest in pain.

Still, I refuse to be vulture bait. Every trembling rep is a promise: I will get stronger, or the desert will take what’s left.

Today is Sunday. The Lord’s day, they used to call it. I don’t know if I believe in a God who’d let the world turn into this dust-choked exile, but out here under an endless sky there’s no harm in asking. Maybe a reward waits. Maybe it’s all wind and delusion. Either way, no steeple in sight, no pews, no preacher—just red rock cathedrals and silence.

So I made my own church.

Found a flat boulder overlooking the canyon, bowed my head, and spoke into the void.

“This is my blood—drink of it.” I tilted the bottle back, warm water sliding down like communion wine, refreshing, alive.

“This is my body—eat of it.” I tore into a strip of jerky, chewed slow, gave thanks for the salt and the smoke and the strength it lends.

Simple ritual. No choir, no collection plate. Just a man, a hammer at his hip, and a question tossed skyward: Guide me, or don’t. I’ll keep walking either way.

Ceremony done, I shouldered the pack and pointed my boots toward Red Rock Canyon Campground—a real spot with pit toilets, water spigots, maybe even a picnic table to call home for a night. Better shelter than open gravel, better rest for whatever the path demands next.

Once I’m there I’ll spread the maps, plot the true northern vector, and decide how far the hammer and I go before dark.

These boots were made for walking. And that’s just what they’ll do.

DAY 2 – January 2, 2026

The Quiet After the Storm

The hammer stayed in its loop today. No glowing eyes in the brush. No sudden snarls from the creosote shadows. After yesterday’s baptism in blood and adrenaline, the desert granted me the rarest gift it ever gives: silence.

New pants—thicker fabric, reinforced seams—held firm against the wind. The adrenaline crash hit hard once the Walmart cathedral faded behind me. Body heavy, legs leaden, mind foggy from the fight and the detour. Progress slowed to a deliberate trudge as I backtracked toward the sacred line on NV-160.

A couple strips of smoky jerky and a tuna pouch torn open roadside were enough. Salt and protein seeped in, the fog lifted, and the rhythm returned—one foot, then the other, the pack settling into its familiar weight.

Setbacks are minor. A few miles borrowed from the true path, a day of forward momentum traded for survival. The odometer doesn’t care about straight lines; it only counts the cost paid in sweat and steps.

Red Rock’s cliffs rose higher on the left, silent red giants watching an ant crawl across their feet. The city’s last lights winked out behind me. Ahead, the highway unspooled into open desert like a promise—or a threat.

I walk now in search of something I can’t yet name. Peace and happiness? Peace and quiet? Maybe just the sound of my own breath without the noise of the old life. Whatever it is, it isn’t back there in the suburbs. It’s out here, somewhere past the next bend, past the next gas station, past the ghosts and the neon temptations.

Danger still waits: wildlife that remembers yesterday’s lesson, weather that can turn in an instant, highway shoulders narrow as a razor’s edge. But for today the path was quiet, and quiet is its own kind of mercy.

These words go out into the void once called the internet—logs uploaded, progress marked. If anyone is still listening out there, reach out. Advice welcome. Supply drops even more so.

Until the next pump for fuel and a phone recharge, I’ll take the quiet while it lasts.

Mile Apocalypse Total: 13.09 / 2026

The road is listening now. Tomorrow it may speak again. Until then, I walk. 💀🏜️🔨

Day 1 | January 1, 2026 Blood on the Asphalt

The suburbs didn’t let me go quietly.

Less than one mile into the sacred northern vector—pack heavy with jerky that still carried the smoke of last night’s final BBQ—the desert sent its welcoming committee.

Two coyotes. Lean, mangy, eyes glowing like embers in the pre-dawn gray. They came fast and silent from both sides, drawn by the scent of meat and weakness.

I’ve lived on the edge of their territory long enough to never walk unarmed. The hammer—cold steel, familiar weight—came out of its loop in one motion.

The first lunged high. I caught it mid-air, hammer crashing into skull with a sound like splitting firewood. It dropped without a yelp.

The second clamped onto my backside. Teeth found fabric, not flesh—thank the 30 pounds I burned off in 2025. Those lost inches bought me life today. The pants, already loose, gave way with a violent rip. The coyote flew backward, a ragged chunk of black cloth in its jaws.

I spun. He charged again, balls swinging like a pendulum counting down my last seconds. My boot caught him under the jaw; the hammer followed, downward arc ending in a wet crunch. He lay still, steam rising from the body into the cold Nevada air.

I stood over the corpses, chest heaving, hammer dripping. Pulled it free, wiped it on the dead thing’s fur, slid it back into its case.

Then I looked at the damage: a gaping tear from waist to thigh, cold wind already knifing through. Two spare pairs in the pack, but light travel means every tear matters. Walk like this and the desert will bleed the heat out of me long before Goldwell or the Bunny Ranch.

Three choices:

1. Ignore the rip and freeze.
2. Burn a backup pair now.
3. Detour. Resupply. Live to walk another day.

I chose survival.

Course corrected east along Blue Diamond—straight to the Walmart cathedral of consumerism, 3–4 miles off the true path. New pants. Durable ones this time. Then back to US-95 to resume the pilgrimage.

It costs me forward progress. It sets the odometer back a day.

But the wasteland taught its first lesson: Adapt or become carrion.

Day 1 Numbers – Paid in Blood and Steps

• Steps: 15,687
• Miles Logged: 7.53 (including the fight, the detour prep, the grind)
• Bodyweight Tribute:
  • Sit-ups: 10
  • Push-ups: 2
  • Plank: 10 seconds
• Mercy Bank: Building (those Walmart miles still count toward Step Surge)

Progress Tracker – Ashes to Iron

New armor acquired soon. Then north again—hammer cleaned, eyes sharper.

The old me would have turned back after the attack.

The exile walks on.

Mile Apocalypse Total: 7.53 / 2026

The road is stained now. It knows my name.

What does tomorrow demand? I’ll pay the price.

Keep walking. Or join the coyotes in the dust. 💀🏜️🔨

MILE APOCALYPSE 2026 – DISPATCH FROM THE RUINS Mile 0 | Midnight, January 1, 2026 Death to 2025

The parties are over. The last slice of pizza devoured, the final beer guzzled, champagne fizzing into a hollow toast as the ball dropped. Midnight struck, and the world pretended everything reset with that magical countdown.

We all know the lie. Nothing changes in those ten seconds. Millions whisper resolutions into the dark, only to shatter them before the hangover fades.

Not me.

I'm burning it all down to build it back.

2025 lies in ashes behind me—old habits torched in the fires of one final night of debauchery. I rose from those embers this dawn, systematically rebuilding. Day by day. Decision by decision.

Thirty pounds already sloughed off like dead skin from the corpse of the old year. More to burn. Miles stretching ahead like scorched earth, forging me into something sharper, harder, unbreakable by journey's end.

I enter 2026 debt-free, a pilgrim with nothing but a backpack heavy with jerky and tuna pouches, a gallon jug of water, and this device to broadcast from the void.

Either I complete the 2026-mile exile north along US-95—through atomic ghosts, surreal sculptures, and the gates of the Bunny Ranch—or the Nevada desert claims me, coyotes picking clean the bones of the man who dared too much.

At 12:01 a.m., under a swollen moon mocking the revelry below, I stepped off the porch of [REDACTED] into the graveyard of suburbia. Confetti corpses littered the streets like fallout. Solo cups rolled in the wind, rehearsing for the tumbleweeds ahead. The neighborhood slept off its sins, unaware one soul had just incinerated his past.

Pack slung—sustenance for the wasteland. 75 Hard ignited. No cheats. No retreat.

The old world died with that door click. From its cinders, the exile rises.

marionevado.art

The road north opens like a wound. Red Rock fringes loom as the first arena. Goldwell ghosts wait mandatory. Temptation beacons from the horizon.

Burn it all. Rise reborn.

Mile Apocalypse Total: 0 / 2026 75 Hard Streak: Day 1 Weight Lost Pre-Exile: 30 lbs Mercy Bank: Empty—for now.

The ashes cool. The pilgrimage ignites at first light.

What remains to incinerate? The desert will decide. 💀🏜️🔥

dreamstime.com

 Going into 2026 I have a few goals that I want to accomplish.

The main one is that I want to have lost a total of 100 pounds by my 50th birthday. This weight loss started in October 2025.

I plan on being more active for the year and eating better, working on things a little bit at a time.

One of my exercise goals is to walk a total of 2026 miles for the year, and I will be attempting to do a weekly blog to go along with it detailing a long walk starting on January 1st.

I will be utilizing Google Maps, Grok and my imagination to go from my door step to places unknown over the course of this journey.  I have a few ideas of where I want to walk to, but it is going to be a work in progress as everything is up for change an interpretation.

I know my first destination, but I do not know how I will get there, how long it will take or anything that might side track me.

This is where Grok comes into play.

Grok, if you don't know, is just the Elon Musk AI bot/app/whatever.

I am telling Grok where I start, where I want to go and that we are using actual paths to get there.  Grok will utilize google maps to plan out my route, let me know where milestones happen. Help me find gas stations, towns, attractions, etc.  Then I will walk to those and talk about my journey and make up a million things along the way.

I've been wanting to get back into writing a bit, so I'm using this as an excuse to do it and hope that I can at least be mildly entertaining along the way.

My first roadblock is ....  this blog and square space.

Everything was working fine until my domain imported over to square space which caused it to stop being viewable and a "website coming soon" page went up in it's place.

So, This will be published and I'm going to go work on figuring out how to get it viewable again.

Wish me luck.

If you're reading this, I succeeded.

 2026 is right around the corner and I've got a few things on my plate that I'm looking forward to.

The biggest one is that I have been making my own BBQ Sauces and I plan on selling them at Farmers Markets locally, in Las Vegas.

I've been taking samples to work and having co-workers try them out and so far it's been positive.

I have someone making lables for me so that I can put them on the bottles when I have batches to sell.

I plan on having a website running with information so people can contact me to order.

Demon Drip - My Favorite