We had a room full last night with Bunny Tracks back and her driver, Sam, sleeping on the floor at the foot of the bed. We would have sprung for a bed for Sam, but it looks like he might be joining the Army special forces. We felt it best if we started toughening him up. Sam hasn’t been happy for a while and hasn’t been showing any interest in college just yet. He’s 6’3”, buff, and smart but doesn’t normally have self motivation. It was his idea to join the military, but I think this is an excellent idea for him and know he will do well.
Bunny brought back some new things and I have been carrying some of her stuff. We also had a good amount of food which I would have shipped ahead if it was going to be just me for another few days, but since I knew she was headed back, I kept it all. I’ve come up with a 7 day plan to get us to Daleville, VA. The short version of what I’m trying to say is that we hadn’t packed anything up yet.
From personal experience, I know Bunny is a slow mover in the morning. I got up and went out to the kitchen to have a cup of coffee with the other hikers that were already up getting ready to head out. As soon as I got comfortable, the alarms went off in Bunny’s head which automatically fire when I am having a good time without her. I accepted my scolding and packed up.
Sam took us to breakfast. Let’s phrase that differently; Sam drove us to breakfast and I paid. Then we hit the post office before he dropped us off at the trailhead. Bunny was very worried about him driving all the way back to MO by him self. I tried to convince her that if the military is considering him for special forces where they will make him into a feared human weapon, he’s probably capable of driving alone.
I will have to get used to having Bunny back on the trail. Gnome and I have hiked together for the last 10 days and he is positive and doesn’t complain. Bunny’s favorite word at the start of every hiking day is “can’t.” She definitely doesn’t have any MexiCAN blood in her. She was not happy about her pack weight. I don’t know what she has in it to make it so heavy; we’ll have to do another shakedown when we get to the next zero.
Being a living PlayDough fun factory isn’t as fun as it sounds, especially if the only shape is round and the only color is beige. Maybe that’s something I can invent—inserts for different shapes and dies to ingest to change the color. It would be much more entertaining if we could put out pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers, and blue diamonds; a lucky charms poop fest. Bunny has obviously gotten back just in time; I have almost turned feral with dreams of throwing fun colored shapes of poop at people who annoy me.
The walk was uneventful today. We were the first at the shelter and not very late considering we didn’t start hiking until after 11. The closest we came to excitement is when we were stopped by a forest ranger telling us to stay on the trail. I’m going to shorten his name to Bob because I know I’ll just butcher the spelling otherwise. His name is of Nigerian origin and it means the return of the father. He was the first male child born into his family after his grandfather died. The main reason I’m going into this detail is that today is his 16th wedding anniversary with his lovely wife, Samantha. I hope he gets to have a special time celebrating tonight.
We got the most colorful sunset we have had so far. Bunny has reverted to an inside mammal in the 10 short days she was home. Her blood has thinned and her skeleton softened. She was under her quilt questioning whether the new sleeping pads are thick enough when people stopped by the shelter telling us about the colorful sunset. Since she hadn’t performed her final water expulsion for the night, we got up to go see. We’ve also got a full moon tonight if the clouds pass.
EFG