TRAIL DAY 85
Sun, May 15, 2016 Breakfast was continental at a large room past the front desk. I helped myself to some rubbery eggs, buns, juice and coffee. Cereal, too.
Part way through my breakfast, a heavily bearded fellow came over to join me. It was Professor! He seemed very nice and quite a bit different than he was at the Chestnut Knob Shelter. He was very kind and mild-mannered. When I started to get up to get more food, he said, “Let me get that for you.”
We chatted as we sipped our coffee until it was obvious we were at the tail end of the breakfast time as a pretty Indian attendant all but swept under our chairs as we talked.
Without rushing, we finally obliged her unspoken directive to wrap it up!
When my article was finished after breakfast, I needed to email it to the Bar Association. Unfortunately, I could not get a connection in my room so I went back to the front desk where the signal was strong enough and got it off. Sphagnum was there and about to head out.
There was a nice large lawn of green grass on the far side of my building. I took Theo here to run around and do what he had to do. I lay on the grass in the late-morning sunlight as my sprayed clothing dried.
I was in limbo that morning wondering about my physical ability. As I accomplished one task after the next, I found that I noted that the totally-wiped-out feeling from the day before had left me.
I would carry on.
I packed up and took a picture of the determined, heavily laden hiker in the mirror above the desk in my room and then started for the trail.
Highway’s door was closed and his curtains drawn. I left the remainder of my Permethrin spray can by his door as a thank you for our time together the night before.
We were back on the trail by 2:15 p.m. with 11.2 miles to go to Wilson Creek Shelter.
As was often the case by a road, the trail would climb steeply away from the pavement at an angle. I think of Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” and its final stanza:
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I feel as if we have taken the same path, he and I.
If I haven’t already said it, one of my favorite scenes is a mounding hill in the sky. Some of these welcomed me back to the trail this beautiful sunny afternoon. As I climbed one such luscious mound, my cell phone rang. I stopped and took the call.
“Sauce! It’s brother-in-law Paul!” Paul, from California, used my nickname from childhood. I have 3 brothers-in-law and 7 sisters-in-law. When they learned that my brother could not say “Soren” when he was little and it came out “Sauce,” Paul and several others endearingly revived the name!
Paul said, “Now Sauce, tell me how you tend to business after Mother Nature demands your attention.” Knowing the point of his question, I had fun shocking his sensibilities with a response that quickly came to mind:
My TP
Grows on a tree
And falls to the ground
Where it can be found.
Paul called around 3:15 p.m. We chatted for maybe 15-20 minutes and then I had to move on with miles to go before I’d sleep.
By 5:30 p.m. I had gone 5 miles to the turnoff to the Fullhardt Knob Shelter. At 7:15 p.m., I had only 3.4 miles to go. I arrived at the Wilson Creek shelter sometime after 9:00 p.m. and set up my tent.
It had been a good day. I’d averaged 1.6 miles per hour. Not bad for an old guy who wasn’t sure his body would let him hike any farther.
Day #85 Daleville > Wilson Creek Shelter 11.2 miles