Today I rest. Tomorrow is uncertain.
On Wed., day 11, just as my cell battery started beeping, I read this email message from Nina McMahon, "We will be within a few miles of Franklin in about an hour. We have a comfy and a hot shower not too far away." I was 12.8 miles from the next road crossing, about 15 miles west of Franklin. I had something to look forward to that evening and night. The lack of hygiene is really getting me down. The sweat, the sunscreen, the dirt, the body odor all depress me when I crawl into my sleeping bag. I feel clammy and greasy. I have bug bites all over me.
I try to watch for ticks. I'm scared of lyme disease and there's a lot on the trail a little further north they say.
The walk Wed. was fairly conventional except for Albert Mt. Which reaches 5200 ft. It was a 2.5 mile uphill but the last 500 feet were gained in .2 of a mile. Which means using hands to pull up over rocks on a path steeper than stairs. It was the hardest 30 min. on the trail so far. I say 30 min. but I don't know because I don't have a watch. I was out of food, water and battery power when I reached the small remote road. A wonderful Asian couple let me use their phone to leave a message for Nina and I tried to describe how to find me. I also got a call through to Alicia so she could try to talk to Nina. Then I sat down to wait however long it would take for Nina to find me. The Asian couple had hiked 2 hours from their car and they were headed back down the trail towards their car. They returned to me sometime later because Nina had sent a text asking them to let me know she was coming for me. I then talked to her myself and that's when I began to realize what a sacrifice she was making for me. Her mountain home is an hour and a half away and she had 5 house guests just arriving. (the Asian couple then again headed back down the trail towards their car. Real trail angels!!!!!!). I was happy to sit and rest but increasingly embarrassed by asking Nina to come for me!!!!!!! She found me which took meeting just the right man to get better directions. I tried to keep the window down a bit as we headed for her sweet mountain home in the prettiest spot in the U.S. It had been 5 days since my last shower, but whose counting? All day walking I changed the words of a song to: 5 days on the trail and I'm going to get a shower tonight. The first thing I did was get clean and wash my clothes while she her husband and guests followed their original plans to go out for pizza and beer. There was plenty of food in the house and I was extremely happy to go to bed early.
Truthfully, I've been discouraged the last couple of days. I'm so exhausted after 12 or 13 miles. That's not enough daily mileage and I leave early and walk steady all day. No problems at all with my feet but my right knee is hurting. It wants to give when I try to stand up and going down steep hills are torture. The last night in the tent when I tried to get out of my tent in the middle of the night I barely avoided falling back on top of my tent.
So today I took what's called a zero day and hung out with Nina and her friends. It has been a satisfying day. Tomorrow I head back to the trail for hopefully a half day of walking. I have a food pick up in Franklin and I dread a full pack of food again.
It has come to my attention that some of my friends are leaving messages for me on the blog but I don't see the blog. I just post messages to the blog from my phone. I'm not seeing the blog itself. I don't even know what pics Lauren is posting on it.
I'm more than grateful to Nina for being there for me when I needed her. Everyone of you who know her thank her again for me. She's my gift of the day for the last two days.
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