A couple weeks ago I joined a group of friends for a backpacking trip in Northern California in the Trinity Alps Wilderness. It has been quite a while since I wrote about a backpacking trip here on PopUpBackpacker, mostly because I find trip reports to be time consuming to put together and the entire process is somewhat boring for me. However, this is a special case.
The Internet is a strange beast. With the anonymity of a computer screen and keyboard there are many people who are not what they appear to be — a counterfeit persona. Along with this there are many people who collect “friends,” “followers,” or “likes” as some sort of ego fulfilling stamp collection.
In spite of this electronic universe, a diligent person can recognize the sincere and honest people on the World Wide Web. But these folks can only be acquaintances. Friendship requires face-to-face real world interactions. At the end of October I spent a few days with some Internet acquaintances who I can now say are friends.