Staying at the stream and not hiking an additional 1.5 miles yesterday was a good call - all the extra rest I received seemed to do my issue a world of good.  Today’s terrain also helped, as it was relatively flat and forgiving.  Also helpful was the fact that we only did 14 miles.  Even after spending some time at The Dark Side with Trail Angel Jim, we finished the day at 1:30pm, which is decent time for me lately.  

Trail Angel Jim was a delight, providing us with twice-filtered water, cookies, and plenty of conversation.  He’s been trail angeling for the past 6 years and he enjoyed sharing his stories.  It was particularly wonderful to sit on the chairs he had - he should advertise chairs, too.

I really enjoyed today’s hike, even stopping to take random pictures because I knew we didn’t have that far to go.  The last several miles were on a forest service road, but that was just fine with me as my issue barely made itself known because of the relative flatness.  In fact, I only took 200mg of Vitamin I today.  It wasn’t a difficult day by any stretch of the imagination so I don’t want to get too excited, but I’m more optimistic than I was yesterday.  

We stopped at Indian Creek because it’s the last ‘good’ water source before we get to the highway where we’ll hitch to Steamboat Springs.  Since it was overcast and threatening to storm, Nick set up the tent in the middle of a nearby meadow.  It was cool and comfortable when it was overcast, but when the sun came out (which it did, for a while at least) Nick felt it was way too hot and wanted to move the tent to the trees about 50 years away.

I was against it, mainly because I didn’t see a need to move.  I was already unpacked and comfortable in the tent and moving seemed like more trouble than it was worth.  Further, there were more clouds on the way that looked like rain so the sun wouldn’t be out forever.  Lastly, I didn’t think the heat was unbearable at all.  I simply pretended I was on a beach in Maui and enjoyed it;  Nick decided to take some of his things and flee to the trees.  It was amusing to see him get so bent out of shape over a little heat.  

While Nick was away, I stretched out in the tent and worked on the blog, going back to the past few days and making notes to Theresa indicating what picture to insert where (I’m often too tired to do that step and usually save it for when I’m in town).  I continued to pretend I was on a beach, which really made me miss Maui.  At one point I heard a moose (?) calling out, which was pretty cool.  

Nick wasn’t gone long - just as I was getting really comfortable, some of the clouds I mentioned earlier covered the sun, which Nick took as a sign that it was safe to return to the bug-free tent.  Shortly after that, it rained a bit.  Nick seemed pacified.

I don’t want to tell him that the sun will be out again in about 15 minutes.  

:)

It feels strange to be done so early but I’ll do anything I can to allow me to continue hiking the trail.  I’m going to take an afternoon nap now - let the healing commence.

Along the way:

Camp:

P.S. So many interesting creatures choose to crawl on the tent!  Yesterday and the day before there were cool spiders that spent a lot of time on the netting above my head;  today it’s a wooly bear!  It’s fun to get such a close view of the little things.  Love it.