Miles: 1743.5 to 1774.4

Mileage: 30.9

Day: 87

No matter how hard we try, it always seems to take us an hour to get moving in the morning. 

Richard’s watch is our alarm. It beeps 10 times. After that we usually make eye contact but don’t speak right away. If one of us closes their eyes and settles back into sleep, that’s the unspoken signal that more rest is needed. The other usually follows suit until the next alarm goes off a half-hour later. 

Then the process really starts. 

Deflate sleeping pad. Reluctantly slip out of sleeping bag. Stuff sleeping bag away in its waterproof compression sack. Change out of lovely, dry sleeping clothes and into dirty, sometimes still wet from rain or sweat hiking clothes. Roll up sleeping pad. Gather up rest of small items into backpack. Put on shoes and socks. Get out of tent. Finish packing (including taking down the tent). Sort food for the day. Don packs. Start moving. 

We usually eat while hiking. This is Richard’s idea. He thinks it’s more efficient than stopping every time you eat. And for him it makes sense because he eats every hour on the hour. For me, I usually don’t care. But some foods are hard to eat while walking. When I want to eat those types of food (ex. granola, spoonfuls of peanut butter, etc.), we pull over. Bars and such can easily be eaten in the run. 

Today breakfast and most meals were eaten while walking. We stopped for about 40 minutes around 1 p.m. I took the opportunity to eat some Oreos, which I posit, taste better while sitting.

The rain started soon after that. It came on and off in hour-long fronts. We would have just enough time to get started drying out and it would happen again. 

The second round really got my feet wet. Sometimes there is a downside to new socks and rain happens to be one of them. New socks still have their fluff and cushion. This feature is very absorbant. Old socks have had the cushion crushed out of them. The water can’t collect. It gets squeezed out with each step. 

I have only new socks right now. Therefore, my feet got very wet hiking in my high-cushion/very absorbant socks. 

The sun came out oh so briefly just before sundown. We ate rice as the trees seeped overhead. 

In my sleeping bag now, I am in dry clothes but still feel moist. But not too moist to sleep.