I experienced a brief highlight of walking this early morning. The wandering, dullish mind said nothing and the world held me in its great grasp.
We crawled out into the cold moonlit day before the sun had made its way up over the eastern horizon, the wind, once again, a brisk and teeth-gritting affair. We had the rare occasion to wake with a hot pot of oatmeal, so once we were packed up, there was nothing much to stop for until we had completed our 17-mile descent down into Old Station. The past few days, I've been losing my inspiration, I'm afraid. The miles have felt long. My legs are gettng sore and my eyelids are dropping to a droop without warning. I suppose it is just a general, and quite typical sort of fatigue. We haven't zeroed but once since leaving Portland a month ago; we haven't showered since Ashland, over 350 miles back.
This morning as we set off and my animal mind started in, taking over the landscape -- projecting a myriad and marvelous memorial to the many great breakfasts I've ever had, or ever may have, if a dawn ever comes to pass when I am bent no longer on the sole sole-pounding task of plodding forever onward, when I no longer have to dose up on Ibuprofen and settle for half a granola bar to tide me over until the next mac & cheese break . . .
It's realy quite incredible how close I can get myself to those images. All the sweets and savories, the perfect and the decadent, each and every sharp, awe-inspiring, lovely cup of coffee, from the quickest bagel shop stop to the most delectably drawn out affair -- it all passes before me, a terrible tasteless taunting, a torture of self infliction.
Bilbo Baggins climbing up through the rain, battered and cold, on a journey he never hoped for in the frst place, thinks endlessly to himself, "Eggs and Bacon, my fireplace at dusk, a good full pipe, my garden aglow in the morning sun seen from the kitchen window, cakes . . . "
Today, however, the unreachable treats -- the calories and the caffeine -- never had a chance. As the sun rose in the east and the orb of moon hung still over the mountains to the west, I realized suddenly how perfectly content I was. The morning was lifted to exaultation on a steady, crisp breeze coming up over the fault line rim. Before me stood the Cascades' last outpost and the snow covered peaks of Mt. Lassen. Back, over my shoulder to the northwest, the last silhouetted portrait of Mt. Shasta, standing solo in the sun.
Families of Quail errupt from slumber and burst from the scrubby brush as I approach them unknowingly along the trail. They blast off one by one in quick succession, out and over the rocky rim of the canyon disappearing from sight and conceivably resettling together again, nestling in, a little communal fold.
Down we go, to the valley below.
Old Station has turned out to be a nice stop. We ate enormous ice cream cones at the general store while country music shimmied and boomed out of the radio and the jolly proprietor gabbed and guffawed glibbly.
Dennis, one of the local trail angels picked us up after we made a quick stop at the Post Office, picking up some food and mailing home some more pack weight. Before we knew it we were showered and snacking and sitting pretty on the porch back at the chicken shack.
I lie in the hammock under shade of tall Ponderosa Pines, the breeze a warm bed beneath my back . . .
We've eaten our fill and shared our stories. Northbounders tell of things to come as we continue on southward. Burn, a section hiker from back east, has been sick and stuck in Etna for the past week. She tells of Donnie "Veto" getting off the trail and buying a motorcycle in Dunsmuir. Shade, our southbound partner of late, sits pouring over his data book, figuring dates and miles and wondering if he still has enough cash to finish this thing in the black. Late evening and a dip in the hot tub before bedding down with a Mario Puzo novel I found in the garage.
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