We camped by a trail junction, so, of course, people started going by quite early. I heard a couple with a dog go by. Some other people approached them and the dog went wild, growling with excitement. The sound of the dog growling woke Bunny up. “Was that a bear?”
It’s been said that first year medical school students are the worst for explaining the obvious. One anecdote says that if a first year hears hooves outside of their window at night, they automatically think “zebra.” My wife was in medicine for 30 years.
The owner yelled at the dog. Bunny crawled over to me and said “I’m not going out there!” Why? “Didn’t you hear her? She yelled ‘Turnip! Kill!’ ”
As I said before, as an engineer I look for causal relationships. We have a childhood obesity problem in the USA. Moms, dads, please stop the habit of naming your attack dogs after vegetables. No wonder we are raising an entire generation of children that won’t eat healthy foods when every day in the streets, they are liable to hear “Asparagus! Attack!” or “Broccoli! Bite!”
What the owner actually yelled was “Turner! Chill!” But because of the first year medical school phenomena combined with poor hearing, we now have something new to be afraid of on the trail…packs of renegade vegetables attacking the unaware hiker. No doubt, I’ll be in the lead all day today, to head off this new danger.
We heard the dog owners talking with some passing hikers about where they were going. The hikers responded with, what I heard to be, “the Spider loop.” Bunny heard them say “the Ranger loop.” When I disagreed, she flat out said I was wrong because I can’t hear. “Turnip! Kill!”
Because of the early morning vegetable scare, I couldn’t use a carrot to keep Bunny moving today, but I did have an even better prize to start the day. In less than a mile and a half, just after our only big climb of the day, there was a campsite with a backcountry prize. That’s right, a privy. More motivation than any carrot of Snickers to a hiker just starting the day. With just a little exertion without prior relief, this is the Holy Grail of hiking on the PCT. We were off with a vengeance (with me leading to clear the path of attack veggies).
Today was easy hiking after our initial morning climb. Even easier after we lightened our “personal loads.” It was slightly overcast which made walking that much easier. What I’m saying is that we could have easily gotten a 20 in today with just a little extra effort, but we decided to not pull the trigger. We’d still have plenty of time to catch the first shuttle in the morning and get Bunny her much coveted biscuits and gravy from the bakery.
Nearing the end of our hiking day, we met an extroverted family from Minnesota. I caught them with their eyes raised high enough to see my feet. The Nordic peoples who settled Minnesota tend to be very quiet and reserved (which is a bit of an understatement if you’ve ever visited there or listened to A Prairie Home Companion). They were out trout fishing in the local creeks. I asked if they had seen any salmon heading up stream to spawn and got a negative response (I think—they were soft talkers as well). I guess were still a few weeks early.
We did get some great news today. Sam is getting stationed in CO so we don’t have to worry about visiting him in some crappy, sweltering, southern military base again. We were hoping for CO or WA so we’re happy. We still don’t know what he’ll be doing yet, but that is not as important as location is to us. We won’t have to be doing any of the crappy work he might get assigned.
Eighteen is respectable mileage for us. I will admit, we could have gotten 20 miles in today, but I didn’t want to carry water for two miles just to get a 20. We will still make it to the road early enough to catch the first shuttle to the bakery to get the biscuits and gravy we have been dreaming out all week. Even without a 20, this is the best 7 day total mileage we have had since we’ve been hiking. We got a little over 105 miles without a resupply or a day off. It must be remembered that we don’t have young legs or a real need to hurry. This just shows we are capable if pushed.
Obviously, food is a motivator for thru-hikers. This is nothing new that hasn’t been discovered and tested for years. If I were willing to carry it and had a bell with me, I could have Bunny walking faster and salivating within a week.
EFG