Date: 2010-07-01
From: Port Clinton Pavilion

To: Windsor Furnace Shelter
Miles today: 6.1
Weather: overcast clouds

~~~The Day I Wised up and Bought Hiking Sticks~~~This morning, Warrior and I watched other hikers mosey down the road and followed them to a little truckstop breakfast place, The Three C's. The best coffee you could possible want plus eggs and toast. Warrior treated me to breakfast. It was the first coffee I've had in over three weeks and it was dee-lish. Warrior decided to take it upon himself to hike with me for awhile, I suppose knowing of my inexperience and since we're practically neighbors in Florida, it was a good setup.He needed fuel so after I dropped off an envelope at the Port Clinton Post Office with a $3 donation to the Cub Scout Troop that maintained the pavilion, this wonderful woman (with a young daughter in a childseat in the back) took us 1.5 miles up the road to Cabela's, a major outfitter, so I could look for a different backpack, get some hiking poles and Warrior could get fuel. Her stepson worked there and she was on her way there and she thought we were a married couple; everyone in town is used to seeing the hikers, we are a pretty harmless bunch. Well, you have no idea just how great a ride is for 1.5 miles, even though we would hike much, much more than that every day. Every mile that you hike that is not part of the trail is a tiring thing. And you never want to backtrack, if you have to. So we get this super ride up to get supplies and this is just great.Well, Cabela's is something else. Huge, just huge. About 90% hunting, 9% fishing and they could care less about the last 1% (hikers). They had all these stuffed animals, including two polar bears, when they were bagged and by who. Upstairs right corner is hiking. Only one backpack design for women and it didn't fit, though I was talking to this woman who was shopping and we were discussing the trail and I commented that if I found a pack, I needed to ship my old one home and she actually offered to do it for me. Took my cell phone number as she was in the store for awhile and said she would call. How about that for nice people ??!?Well, nothing to be had for packs or even for medical supplies. Now this store is just huge and one would think that they would have a nice assortment of things for blisters and such. Nope. They did have, however, 5 different sizes of dressings in the event you were shot and how to staunch blood flow, but anything for blisters? Nope, nope, nope. A store full of total crap (well, things like lighters that look like a fishing rod, ceramic cups in the shape of a moose, camoflage baby diapers, things like that) but really, nary a thing for a backpacker. I did, however, buy a sweet set of hiking poles and kissed fairwell my beloved single hiking staff, left at the courtesy counter in a rack of umbrellas and other poles and such. Hopefully, someone will see it and see the potential it has for town, but not for the trail. Also bought a Nalgene bottle that has the lid attached so when you lose a lid on the Gatorade bottle, like I did, it doesn't make your water bottle unusable. Red colored because the yellow one's make your water look like a urine sample. And, for further enjoyment, bought a tube of Burt's Bees pepermint Foot Balm to try to coax life back into my nerve deprived feet. Anything that has to do with better foot care is worth the extra weight. 'Nuff said.Cabela's has a shuttle for hikers, so we scored again a ride back to the trailhead. Used my super sweet poles up the steep incline, wondering how I ever did any part of the trail before this without them. Note: getting out of any town requires going uphill, almost always a steep uphill. It's always expected. Complaining is not an option. Slow, slow going to the next shelter. I cannot begin to give you the picture of the trail. If you think I'm just skipping along like it's a sidewalk covered with pine needle's, think again. Rare is the time where your foot is actually on flat ground. It is ALL rocks and boulders. So much so that you can see along the side of the trail and it's grassy or has plants and trees and all the rocks are ON THE TRAIL. Sharp pointy rocks that you step across using the points or massive boulder fields that have the blazes painted on the boulders as there are no trees. It makes for a very slow hiking day and you really, really earn the miles.Got to the shelter with enough time to wash up and do my little load of laundry (bra and ex officio knickers). Put up the hammock in a clearing across from the shleter as I do like my hammock, it's more comfortable for me than a shelter and I can raise my feet and legs up to relieve the pressure. No other thru hikers but this lovely couple who were just doing a couple days came up. Jeff and Liz and their dog Lucy. Both teachers, going to be married next June and Warrior and I regaled them with story after hiker story of all the things that happen or go on in Trail life. Jeff is a 7th Grade Science Teacher and even he had eyes like pie plates over some of the things we laughed about. Their dog Lucy was a big black mix, very, very sweet and great to have around as bears tend to stay away from the shelters that have the pooches. Bears, actually, are quite afraid of humans and only want the easy pickings of lazy hikers who fail to bear bag or hang their bag incorrectly. With Lucy in the shelter, we just hung our food bags from the mice cans, tuna cans that are hung at shelters to keep the mice out of things. They were great company.