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breaking in old "new" boots


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Posted by Zonie on January 19, 2020 at 02:19:50

I'm not quite the Imelda Marcos of the western world, but when it comes to boots I do have a selection. I sometimes used to wear my regular work boots mudding, but the trouble was that they didn't always dry properly by Monday. I certainly didn't have a problem wearing soggy boots to work, but my boss once said that they smelled bad. Like LeviLovr I sometimes have to go through my closet for items I have neglected, and I came across a pair of work boots that I must have bought many years ago and never worn. They were lace-up Herman Survivors, tan with real leather uppers and the balance synthetic. I like that combination. It means that the boot isn't likely to shrink if it gets wet. I was planning a long mud hike on state trust land this morning, and I figured I'd give those new-looking boots a belated breaking-in.

I had planned to stop by the Tractor Supply store in Cave Creek, and since I was deviating northward anyway, I figured I'd start my hike on Dynamite Road and head southward. I thought it best to do the shopping first. If I came in plastered with mud, I'd turn heads even there.

It hasn't rained for three weeks, but I knew that the power line trails were so rutted and uneven that they would preserve mud puddles even that long. One characteristic of the desert is that there is often a large range in temperature between morning and afternoon, and today was no exception. In Phoenix the temperature range was 42°F to 70°F. This helps keep the deep mud cool even if the sun has been heating it for hours. I was out there for just about five hours, from 10:15 to 3:20.

The puddles of the northern part of the trail were if anything deeper than I expected. One was knee deep. Of course my work boots flooded, but they were surprisingly comfortable even with water and mud having gone into them. I jumped into the shallow puddles to splash mud high up on my overalls.

I was getting warm, so I took off my shirt and put it in my knapsack. There's a first time for everything, but I don't recall ever having had a sunburn in January before, so I figured it was safe enough (apart from the risk of being mistaken for Sasquatch). Of course I remembered natural sunblock and later on I ended up smearing mud on my arms and shoulders as a precaution.

There were some long stretches without mud, but I remembered that part of the reason I do this is exercise, so I kept going towards the other mud areas. As is often the case this time of year, coyote central was a small lake, and there were a couple dirt bikers in the vicinity, but I finally found the perfect mud hole. It was deep and creamy, and I sat down and slid in it, smearing mud over my overalls and feeling it soak through. I got up feeling much heavier but kept on hiking to other puddles in which to splash, and higher up the mud dried and flaked off. I explored puddle areas to the east and west along the intersecting power line trail before heading back north again.

One strange thing I noticed was that on the way back there were large numbers of bees around the puddles that hadn't been there in the morning. I guess the increasing temperature brought them out to resupply the colonies.

As I neared my car I contemplated whether to put on my shirt. I had to refuel, and I didn't remember if the filling station had a sign saying "no shoes, no shirt, no service." I thought if I was going in muddy it might look less barbarous if I at least wore a shirt, so I put it back on. It felt strange putting a shirt on over caked-on dried mud on my arms and shoulders, but I planned to launder that shirt anyway. The clerk made no trouble about my appearance, and I refueled and headed home.

There was still plenty of daylight when I got home, so I could easily see well enough to hose down my overalls in the back yard and get the laundry started. I then took a shower. I had arranged things well, having finished while it was still warm. I had gone mudding in winter without being chilled.

As to the boots, I dumped the excess water out of them, and scraped out the pebbles, but otherwise I left them alone to dry. I didn't hose them down. I figure letting the mud dry on them gives them character.





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