Date: 2019-04-23
From: Standing Bear Farm

To: Deep Gap
Miles today: 6.9

It¢s probably the zeros that set us back, but today we were slow-moving. Hot Sauce and I were listening to music and we were all charging our phones and relaxing. Prometheus bought me breakfast. I mainly just didn¢t want to pay when I had oatmeal and other things in my food bag I could eat, but he was sweet and wanted me to have their scrambled eggs, sausage, and potatoes. Again, I was disappointed by the food. There were ants crawling on my plate and it just didn¢t feel sanitary or that tasty. I ate it and then we headed over to pack up. Out tents had gotten so much condensation on them overnight. It was actually frustrating because they were soaking wet with condensation. It didn¢t even rain and yet we were packing up wet tents. Part of what took time this morning was hanging the rain flys to try to dry them out. We finally got everything packed up and headed out. I lagged behind a bit. I think it was a combination of the zeros and my heavy pack, but my stomach was also hurting. About 20 minutes in I thought I was going to be sick and I took my pack off and clenched my stomach. Thankfully nothing happened, but I was not doing well. I sat for a bit in the middle of the trail. I knew Prometheus was frustrated by the late start and I was just hoping he and Hot Sauce would go on today and I¢d find them later. But he¢s too sweet and he waited for me. He and Hot Sauce stopped at the next water source and she had lunch. I caught up to them and we all agreed we weren¢t going far today. We headed out again and Prometheus hiked behind me. I really do love how helpful he is. I was feeling pretty terrible and sluggish. I let him and Hot Sauce go ahead. They made it to Deep Gap. There was a shelter there, but it was in bad shape and everyone was camping, so we decided to camp before the shelter, in the Gap. I took my time and met up with them there. Prometheus had left little notes for me, ¢Deb¢, in the dirt along the way. Hot Sauce wanted me to camp with her and give Prometheus space because he does so much for everyone else and sometimes he forgets to take care of himself. He claims that he grew up on a farm and there was always something to do, so he¢s always on the move. It¢s true though. He was making a fire and hanging a clothes line and setting up his tent before I could process it all. Trust me, on most normal days, I¢m pretty good about moving and getting myself going. It¢s the waking up part that is tricky for me. Waking up at 7:30 and getting out by 9 isn¢t bad, for all the camp stuff to do and breakfast and whatnot, but I need to get up earlier. It wasn¢t happening in the past few days with my zeros and then the sluggish mornings we¢ve had as a group. And I really do like to be helpful and get things done, but I¢m tired too so it¢s tough. We all made dinner and had a really nice time. We hung the bear bags a little late and Prometheus was trying to throw the rock in the dark, which was hard. There were bear cables down at the shelter, but we didn¢t want to walk down in the morning to get food. Prometheus found a good tree and he and Hot Sauce used some method that was different than the PCT method to tie it up to another tree. It worked and was high enough off the ground, as well as far enough from the trees. We stayed up late and I was pretty tired, so went to bed. Town really messes with schedules! But we had an exciting plan to go to Max Patch tomorrow and I was looking forward to it.Little Debbie