Date: 2003-05-26
From: DavisFarm Campsite

To: Bland Va.
Miles today: 15.7
Weather: overcast clouds

It was foggy and misty when I woke up this morning but the view was still great. I fixed breakfast and sat and watched the farm scene below. This is a scene I wish I could drink in and drink in until it became a part of me. I try to clean up the rest of the milk I spilled last night. It is now mingled with the mud off of my boots so that it resembles a watery chocolate pudding. I put my foot liners on and then my socks in a futile effort to keep down the movement of my feet in my boots. I am bent over in my tent trying to pack up when Barley comes up behind me and sticks his nose in a most unappropriate place and sends me sprawling into my tent. At least I have a laugh for the day already. The rain has once again made the trail slippery and muddy. Thank goodness the climbs are short(but not sweet). My feet are screaming as I climb. I take a couple more Vitamin I and keep on plugging away. The trail has given me a choice today, it is either rocky or muddy. Either way is torture to my feet. I feel much better emotionally today than yesterday. Yesterday I had this overwhelming thought all day that something at home was wrong. All I could do was pray, but that did little to ease my anxiety which was unusual, since prayer almost always calms me down. I am glad I am going into town today, and look forward to that fact all day. I am also aggravated that my hiking speed has not gotten any faster. It seems I am still hiking the same slow speed that I have been since the beginning. I tried doing some speed work like we do in running, but I feel like a turtle going up some of these climbs. I come out at the road that goes into Bland and Uncle Mark and doug are there. They have a mail drop in Bland so they are going in. I am releived to meet up with them. I did not want to break my promise of not hitch hiking by myself. They had not had any luck getting a ride up to that point. I told them I would pray us up a ride. It was maybe five cars later before we were whizzing away down the road into town. A ride right to the motel. The only motel in town. Good old Big Walker Motel. And a Dairy Queen just down the hill. The last time I talked to Papermaker I found out that our main employee had quit. I had really been thinking about going home to help out with the business. Papermaker has been doing my job since I started hiking, now he will be assuming another job also. Of course when I called home he insisted that he and my son could handle it, and that I did not need to even entertain the notion of coming home. He would have said that even if they were up to their eyeballs at work. We decided to see how things were in a month and make a decision then. I still feel quilty about being out here having fun while he is back home working. I had talked to Uncle Mark at dinner about this and he reminded me that I was saving lives everytime I took a step out here. I had not thought of it like that. I had only considered the fact that I was raising money for polio vaccinations. Sure enough pocketmail was closed for the holiday, it is a good thing I came into Bland and not Bastian. I manage to catch two of my kids at home and talk to them. Everything is okay, so it was needless worrying on my part. I wash my clothes in the tub and hang them up to dry. When I was a teenager, I had to wash my clothes in a bath tub. I vowed never to do that ever again. Okay, so never say never. I have a long hot soak and hit the sack.