Today I learned some practical advice that I would like to pass on to you. Here goes: the REI Quarter Dom tent has two different color poles, two orange and one silver. If, as you take down your tent early in the morning, you would like to avoid being smacked in the face, take out the silver pole first. And if you do smack yourself in the face with a tent pole early in the morning, try to laugh about it, because, let’s admit it, it is pretty funny.
And if later that same morning you say goodbye to some people you met at the shelter and accidentally take the path to the privy and not the Appalachian Trail, try to find this humorous, too. What I usually do is say enthusiastically, “I missed you!” and then walk past them in the correct direction. Not that I have done this three times or anything.
I have been learning these things today and generally having a good time with it. Later, while still wearing my pack, I bent over to take a picturem lost my balance, began to fall, protected my camera with my body, rolled over and got stuck. I tried to stand up but my heat got tangled up in my straps so I ended up having my butt in the air in the rest of me stuck close to the mud. Kind of hilarious.
Part of why that fall happened is that mu pack is now heavy again. I finished the White Mountains and figured the trail would be easier, so I went a little overboard on the amount of food I bought. Today I had a conversation with myself that looked a little like this:
Me #1: Addy, why are we carrying 3/4 lbs of powdered milk? If you eat 2 lbs of food per day, you are assuming that almost half a day’s calories will come from milk.
When you other self gets nervous and says that you do use powdered milk in Mac ‘n Cheese, pudding, and cereal, try to say something kind and reassuring like, “At least we won’t have to restock milk for another month. That’s good.” And don’t mention the 1 1/2 lbs of trail mix or the completely separate 1/2 of raisins–it’s kind of a delicate subject.
Speaking of delicate matters, I have been hiking in a skirt, which I love, but today I went through a swarm of bitey gnats. You know, the kind you can’t see but when they bite it’s like someone put a tiny match to your skin. Maybe you didn’t know about that. Anyhow, I tried to walk faster, but they were following me, so I dropped my pack and ran, spraying Deet on myself all the while. They were biting me through my shirt, so I whipped it off (still running mind you), sprayed my back, put it back on and sprayed again.
And then I had a terrible realization: the gnats were biting my legs and fast approaching my nether regions with no pants to block them. I raced back to my pack, dug through it, grabbed my rain pants, and ran away again. I got to the road where the gnats weren’t quite so bad, but I was in a hurry and wasn’t thinking so I tried to put my rain pants on over my shoes and my gators, got one foot stuck and fell over. I’m not kidding at all. Then a car drove by.
If this day had been a movie, I would have groaned and called it slap-stick. But there I was happening to me in real life. And, as I slapped the inside of my legs to make sure there were no bitey gnats hanging out, I was laughing.
I’m feeling more and more grateful for my time out here (and I hope my other blog posts haven’t made it look like I’m always depressed). Because, for al the tent pole to the face smacks, falls, and bitey bug reality, being out in the woods is wonderful. And getting to be outside for this long is a gift (even on bad days).
