I’m getting into this terrible habit of ignoring my alarm – it’s cold when it goes off at 5, and there’s no one else stirring, so I roll over and go back to sleep. At 5:45 though, Evac starts stirring in a manner it’s impossible to ignore, so I’m up myself, if only marginally. I ask for just a sip of coffee and she offers it to me, sweet brown liquid rolling warmly down my gullet. I guess it’s time to start the day. Continue reading
Morning comes quickly, since I stayed up past 10 writing. My alarm goes off at 4:30 – nobody stirs. I reset it for 5, still nobody stirs. It’s not until I hear movement at 6:05 that I finally feel like a lazy fuck enter consciousness for good, try to relax into the morning. No one’s in a hurry today. Continue reading
4:30 comes way, way too early, everyone’s alarms going off in sync since we’re in town on the network. I’m the only one set for 4:50, so I get to lounge for a few more minutes. This bed is so soft, the covers are so warm, how could I ever leave? But there’s a bus coming at 5:30 and there are people scurrying thither and yon, stuffing things into backpacks. I suppose I should join them, and I do even though I’m tired-nauseous and have to sit down a lot. Continue reading
I wake late – 8am – but it’s still earlier than most of the others. I’ve got a lot to do today and so little time to do it, but I’m trying my damndest to get it all done. This is a working zero, or so I tell myself before I grab coffee and sit chatting with U-Turn, then U-Turn and Evac, then then then, as the others all slowly emerge from bed. Continue reading
I’m sO EXCITED in the morning – Walker Pass awaits! – that it’s easy to get up and moving, easy to roll out of camp despite being tired from the wind last night and the desert holding on for so many more miles and and and. I’m just ready to recoup in a town, even if that only means resupplying and going to the post office for my shoes. I hope it’ll set me straight, get me out of this funk I’ve been in. First, though, I gotta get there. Continue reading
The sun is closer to risen than I’d like in the morning, but cowboying makes for an easy pick-up. Everyone settles in for breakfast at the table, drifts off; I grab three liters from our cache for the trek to Devilfish’s supposedly super-reliable cache ten-ish miles ahead. Yoda and Wolf both plan to pack out the emptys we’ve created; Wolf is also tasked with writing on the extra bottles: Not a Maintained Cache, Please Pack Out Emptys! We hope it works – hiking the PCT and the CT has restored my faith in humanity, and I think the community will come through for us again. Continue reading
It’s a chilly evening – I nestle down tight in my sleeping bag, letting my breath be my space heater and tightening my hood against the cold. When I’m out, I’m out – I’m hardly awoken by my alarm that’s 30 minutes earlier than we’ve agreed, and then it’s only that Pineapple’s chirps a merry tune at us that I even register that it’s morning. But nobody moves. Someone should move. The alarm goes off. Nobody moves. Continue reading
It’s so hard to move in the morning, cocooned down into my sleeping bag. I’m mostly shamed into it, when everyone shifts and stirs. Even though I cowboy camped, Homegrown and Sprinkles, with their tent, are packed and out before me. But I’m on my feet by 5:30, and rolling out into the dawn. Continue reading
I wake at dawn, and then again late – 6:30am. Rad that I think this is late now. Of course, one of the first things I do is find an earwig in my sleeping bag, so that puts a wee damper on my enjoyment, but I sweep it out no harm no foul. I need motivation to move before the sprinklers come on at 8, but I give myself a half-hour of Facebook before starting to gather my things to move them to the tarmac. Continue reading
I’ve cowboyed on the lawn of the airport’s park, and the spot is pretty great – flat, out of the light, not too close to anyone. There are earwigs when I wake up, though – in my bag, on me, crawling all over the tyvek. WELP TIME TO GET UP. Continue reading
Brown Girl on the NST 