Date: 2006-03-16
From: Campsite

To: Brown Fork Gap Shelter
Miles today: 13.5
Weather: overcast clouds

3:59 pmSunshine hitched into town to "get a knee brace," but he got marshmallows and graham crackers and chocolate. He is absolutely my hero. I could have hugged him. I am so grateful. Today. Hm... Words to describe today: "beastly" and "grueling", although overall I think I've hit my stride. Tomorrow I'm going to have absolutely no food. Crap. But overall, the last few days have been no big deal.6:59 pmWe're all really bad singers. We burst into song in a variety of keys all the time. Doesn't really matter. It's kind of interesting: there are all kinds of smarts, but it seems like most of them don't really matter out here. What matters here is your ability to live out here. To keep on keeping on. To survive the daily physical and emotional challenges. 13.5 miles today by the way. 14 yesterday. Both days were challenging but doable. My fitness has definitely improved. During the bitch of a climb today I got super out of breath, of course, but recovered much quicker than a week ago. Some interesting things I've noticed out here: Days out here can be called monotonous but the word boring never comes to mind for me. You wonder how far you've come and how far to go. Sometimes you look at your watch expecting an hour to have passed only to see that it was only eight minutes. But I don't think I'd say I've ever been bored. Today Kaptain Kangeroo and I got into the shelter at 2:45. It was just the two of us because Sunshine hitched in and Tofurky was behind and Lockjaw was for awhile and then missed the shelter turnoff so it took him awhile. Anyway, there was nothing to do at the shelter. We got water, we blew up our sleeping mats. That's about it. Then we sat and it was relaxing to have nothing to do. We had worked hard, put in our miles, and we were done. Another thing about life out here: I guess I kind of thought that I'd take this time to sort out my life. Definitely not the case. It's really not a good or bad thing. It just is. I don't think more than a few times a day about home. Most of the time when I think about my normal life it's because I'm thinking about how I'm surprised that I don't think about it more. This is a family. A family that I've known for just under two weeks but with which I've spent an intense number of hours. Brothers, sisters, good and bad influences, parental figures for me, the youngest, but we're all peers. And we care about each other. The other thing I've noticed: In most sports, it's completely accepted that guys will outperform girls. Here, probably because it's such a mental endeavour, we are all equal. It snowed and sleeted today for maybe an hour. It wasn't super cold, but it was coming down. It's so windy right now, it's blowing sparks everywhere. I hope Kurly and Swansons catch up with us tomorrow at Fontana Dam. 12.7 miles tomorrow, I think. S'mores were so good tonight. I actually did think about home today. I wanted to call my parents. But I'm so happy that I get to be out here so long. Boomer went home. I can't imagine being home right now. There are things I'd like to do and not do. Ways that being home would be nice. But I just want to spend the next four months living this simple life. I'm filthy. My hands are basically black and I smell! I was so sore today and my achilles and knee hurt and I worked really, really hard getting up those hills. But here I am with Lockjaw and Kaptain and Sunshine and Tofurky. Sitting by a fire that I built. We're full of S'mores (I probably had a half a dozen at least, plus additional marshmallows). We're talking about how to leave a message for Swansons and Kurly and about today's miles and about how far we have tomorrow. I'll get in my sleeping bag (with two liners - I got a second one at the NOC) and hopefully sleep as well as last night (I slept really well last night, I was warm enough and didn't have to get up to pee and slept for straight hours despite the fact that my tent went on a slope). "Streuth!" Means the same as "Crike!" in Australia. I'm learning more and more about Australia. Have to go. Wind blew shelter register everywhere.