Plop. Plop. Plop.  More rain falling as I woke up this morning. It’s hard to get out of the hammock when it’s non stop raining. I was still pruny when I woke up and I knew it wasn’t going to get any better all day. But outside of the hammock I could hear baby talk and rocket finishing up breakfast and I knew I needed to get a move on. 

I moved slowly through my morning chores as is becoming the norm. I’ve been low on energy as of late and everything feels like a task to be done, rather than a fun activity. I know it’s a lack of calories that is causing it, but it’s so hard to get enough in me to stay positive. But I’m trying. 

With this in mind, In addition to my oatmeal and milk breakfast, I ate a bag of sour patch watermelons and a bar of chocolate. When a few day hikers came down to our campsite, I knew it was really time to go. They wanted to chat and I didn’t. 

I set off down the trail which looked more like a rain forest than anything else. It was totally eclipsed in cloud and water dripped from every surface. I didn’t even need a freedom step. Just walking through the tall grass got my shoes saturated within the first half hour. 

After an hour or so, wormwood and caboose caught up to me. Their conversation, it seemed, was what I needed to get myself out of my funk. We talked about everything and nothing. We talked about hiking, jobs back home, parents, plans, candy, shoes, packs and who knows what else. Next thing I knew two hours had passed. Then wormwood dropped off and Pleasure Theif joined us and a whole new range of topics were discussed. 

18 miles and what felt like no effort later and I was in town. As were rocket, baby talk and mama talk (baby talk’s mom). Mama talk and her friend had come out to do trail magic but due to the weather hadn’t seen a single hiker. They were disappointed but still happy to take us to dinner. I think they were surprised when we said we wanted fast food. And more surprised when they watched us down calorie after calorie (I for one ate 2,000 calories of Wendy’s cheeseburgers and fries)

After a quick resupply at Walmart we were back on trail and all three of us felt AMAZING. Never did I think that fast food would be a miracle drug for hiking but those calories were just what we all needed. (If spam won’t sponsor me, I’m willing to settle for Wendy’s) We practically flew the 6 uphill miles to camp and then downed the hoagies that mama talk had picked up for us to take out for dinner as well. 

We sat in a creek soaking our blistered feet until the rain and dark over took us, sending us back to our own shelters and off to an early bed time. 

Key stats:

Miles 24

Elevation gained: 2,900 ft

Mile marker: 1226

Patties on my cheeseburger: 4