We sort-of slept in, but as soon as the sun crested the canyon it was impossible not to get up.  I don’t know about Nick, but I woke up feeling pretty rough because I was so dehydrated yesterday.  The best part of my morning was breakfast, when I enjoyed the last of Mary’s delicious breakfast bars (thank you so much for sending them in the resupply box, Mary, they were a real treat!).

A late start meant it was already pretty hot when we started hiking.  That by itself isn’t a big deal, but because I felt hungover from being dehydrated it made a huge difference.  It’s safe to say we both had a slow start.  

In addition to feeling hungover, I was taking it slow because I decided NOT to take any Ibuprofen.  I didn’t have any pain at all yesterday, not even a twinge, so I figured I’d test the waters and see if my body had anything to tell me.  It turns out that my ankle annoyance is still there (but getting better), my blisters are healing, and that my IT band seems fine.  Somehow.  But still, I was cautious and took it slow.

It was, once again, beautiful.  I particularly loved watching a hawk soaring in the air - how wonderful it must be to be able to fly!)

We only had to go up and over one mesa today, which was a relief only because I felt so crappy.  The audiobook I downloaded in Grants helped the miles pass, but nothing could take away the awfulness of the road walk into town.  You’d think that after doing 34 road miles in one day the 4 road miles I had to do today would seem like nothing, but that wasn’t the case today.  It was a slog, except when the old farmer asked if I wanted a ride to town (I thanked him profusely but said I had to do it on my own two feet).  I also enjoyed seeing a small bird fly with a hawk, it was cool to watch.  

Link to Video of Hawk and Small Bird

(Editors Note-Not sure why it won’t let me load the video as I did above, sorry readers, but the link does take you to the YouTube page with the video)

I trudged right to the motel where we are staying and attempted to check-in, but Flora (the nice, slightly eccentric lady who owns this motel) wasn’t in.  As I waited, Shredder walked by (he’s staying here, too) and told me that the powers that be are planning to close the trail north of us due to fire concerns.  Yikes.  It makes me not want to stop here, even though I know we both need a zero.  

After talking with Shredder, I also talked about the fire closure with Blaze, who it turns out is also staying here.  Blaze is like us - she wants to hike the CDT with “no skips and no flips”.  We mourned the potential loss of that goal and then decided not to worry about it, as we don’t have any control over what will happen.  We’ll just make the best of it.  

I finally found Flora washing sheets and she checked me in.  Nick showed up just as I was filling out the paperwork, so it was perfect timing.  

Neither of us was up to walking a mile to a restaurant to join Blink, so after showering and laundry we walked to Dollar General, which is right next door to the Cuban Lodge.  We found some decent dinner in their frozen food section (having a microwave in the room is great) and have been in our motel room ever since.

I’m looking forward to zero miles tomorrow!

Along the trail: