Last night I stayed in a lean-to with an impossibly beautiful couple from Holland. They snuggled and kissed and spoke to one another in Dutch. I had to interrupt them, “Um, excuse me,” I said to the man, “would you mind turning away while I change?” This is what everyone does in lean-tos. Neither them seemed to understand. Finally, it registered and they laughed. The man murmured something about not in Holland, and turned away and said in Dutch what I can only assume was: “Silly American girl. Can’t she see that I am here with my impossibly beautiful girlfriend? I don’t care if she changes.”
I told them earlier that I had gone swimming in a swimming hole by the river. When I was done changing, the man asked me (and it will help if you imagine a sexy European accent), “Do Americans not take their clothes off when they go swimming in remote places?”
I said that my swimming hole was away from the trail, but not that far away and that a girls camp was coming by so I did not feel comfortable skinny dipping.
He said, “When I bathed earlier in the stream, I was naked. No big deal.”
Now, the stream he was talking about is not hidden or far away; you actually have to step right over to keep hiking. So he was, in essence, blocking the trail with his impossibly beautiful body.
They started asking me questions, “You are not lonely on the trail?” I said that it can be lonely at times, but that I have met a lot of cool Northbound hikers, my mom had visited, and I had hiked with an awesome section hiker for a few days.
“But you are alone most of the time?” they said.
“Well, yes, but I am sure that I will sync up with some other hikers going my direction eventually.”
They said, “We were told that people on the trail form their own community, but for you, not so much?”
At this point I felt like I was in Middle School trying to explain that there aren’t many kids in science club and that I get picked on in band. And here were the cool kids trying to get me to admit that I had no friends and would be alone forever.
“We are very sorry for you,” they said. “We hope you will meet some people.”
Suddenly it seemed ridiculous for me to tell them that I had spent forty-five minutes talking with a sweet retired therapist named D (about non-therapy matters) and that I had a friend meeting me in the next big city, so, see I am not completely alone, right?
It’s not been so bad. People on the trail are really friendly. Often they will talk with you if you want, and I’ve shared dinner and hostel rooms with several great Northbounders. And if I do get the chance to travel with someone else, I take it, even if they are going a different pace.
Still, there are times when I’ve thought about going home and restarting in the Spring so that I would be traveling with a lot of people. And I would be lying if I said I hadn’t cried on more than one occasion because I missed my Portland community. It would be different if I were going away for a month knowing I would come back as soon as the month was over. Somehow, missing home seems to be ramped up a notch when I know I will be gone for a while.
At least for now, I feel like being here is the right decision. Yesterday I swam and laid out in the sun, and I am writing this from the top of the mountain I just summited. Yesterday, if you can believe it, I actually spotted a moose. Today is going to be a hard day, I have to do some pretty rough climbing, it will take a long time, and my body is still not used to having strenuous hiking day after day. But, as the man from Holland said, “The hiking takes a long time and the complaining takes even longer,” so I suppose I’ll have to ditch one.
Missing home. – Adelaide
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