Cloud to the Moon
When I woke up this morning I heard this odd sound on my rainfly. It was rain. Ugh. The worst thing when hiking is putting away a wet tent. I tried looking up a video of how to put away my tent under my rain fly so that it wouldn’t get wet but I couldn’t find anything and my attempt still ended up with the tent being wet. I ended up shoving everything into the tent bag and hoping for some sun later in the day so I could air it out. Spoiler. That didn’t happen.
After getting all my stuff together and packed up I waited for AH to get ready to go and we headed off. P had already left super early like usual and Legs and Wahoo were still asleep on account for all the devil’s juice they consumed yesterday evening. After saying goodbye and thank you to our host we were off.
My view for the day was basically a cloud. All day. AH and I were joking that the weather report was inaccurate in saying it was going to be cloudy. We were in the cloud.
Only after minutes of walking on the trail my shoes were soaked through due to the grasses and plants that I had to walk through. It was also quite windy and I could see the moisture in the air moving sideways. Gross. I had to remind myself that I had walked farther in wetter conditions just a few months ago but that wasn’t very motivating at the moment.
Our lunch break was just a quick shovel some calories in your mouth and keep going type of thing. If I stopped moving for too long I got way too cold. My raincoat helped a little with keeping me warm but not by much.
We were making really good time though. We passed the 19.7 mile point pretty early and didn’t see Pat there so we continued for another 4 miles to the road that would take us to Casa De Luna (a trail Angela’s house where hikers can camp and be fed and meet new people). Once we got to the road it took about .5 seconds for someone to pull over after AH raised his thumb. We climbed into the back of the truck and after a quick stop at the gas station we were at our destination.
I found some familiar faces and many new ones. DB was there taking his first zero, as was Saunter. After getting the tour I hung my tent up in the garage to let it dry and I sat down and took off my soaking shoes and socks to inspect the damage done to my feet. It wasn’t too bad but everything was pruney and I hate pruney skin. Bleh. I also learned that my dress is stretchy enough to cover my legs when I’m curled up. I apparently looked so sad that DB eventually got me a blanket. That was a game changer. I wrapped myself up and got maybe 2 degrees warmer. DB gave me a heads up that our host would ask for a volunteer to stir cheese for the taco salads. Boy. Did my hand almost fly off my wrist when that time came. I got to go into the dry house and stand in front of a warm stove. It was magical. I even got a pair of loaner fuzzy socks out of it because everything else was either tucked away in my pack or soaking wet. My feet were very happy.
After two servings of taco salad aka nachos with lots of toppings minus the cheese, I found my way back to the mattress and my blanket.
A few hours later everyone was making their way into their respective sleeping areas. Since my tent was still drying I stayed on the mattress with my blanket plus two more DB acquired. DB and another hiker whose name I did not learn also stayed in the front yard under the tarp. It was a very cold evening. At some point it started raining again but luckily it never got to where I was swaddled in my pile of fabric. I’ve had worse nights of sleep.