AT Adventures: Day 42, 7-26-07

For those of you who are ‘Hitchhikers Guide’ fans, this was the answer to everything. It was a tough day, but I’m not sure why. There were a lot of stiles to be climbed this day, and that’s never fun. It’s just not. At the interstate yesterday we called home to let them know the particulars of things. We had been in touch with letters and things, but I wanted to actually make a call before we/they got to the point and went: What’s going on?’ The particulars weren’t worked out at home, but we were going to eventually get there, so that’s what the important part was. I totally stepped on a garter snake. Just in the groove and rolling along, and then Caleb goes ‘Woah!’ And I’m like, ‘What?” And he replies ‘you totally just nailed that snake.’ So we took a picture. I hope it was ok. Oh, by the way: even though I wore a hole in the Vasques, I loved them. They were so awesome. I got one blister, and that was only because my feet got really wet and wrinkly, and I always get blisters when that happens. At this point, I knew that C and I had only two days left, one full day on the 27^th, and however long it would take us to cover 11 miles the day after. It was a mixed bag of feelings. I was a little grateful to get off the trail, to be consistently clean, to have lots to eat. There was also a great deal of sadness. I didn’t really want to go. I wanted to be able to put: Oops GA->ME 07 in the trail journals. I was tempted to just let my boss know I wasn’t coming back, and drop Caleb off with the family, and then keep on trucking. At the same time, I was ready to get back and start having adventures back home, discovering new places to eat, more people to befriend, and more tea to drink. There was a wide world in Raleigh that I could return to, and although it was not wreathed in trees and nestled in mountains, it was still a wonderful place to be. I was ready.