Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Day 46 - 5/30/10
That's a big part of hiking the trail. Smelling bad, being dirty, sore
feet, aching muscles, bugs in your face, poison ivy, unbearable
humidity, sleeping on uneven ground, and so on and so on. You have to
get comfortable with being uncomfortable or you won't make it the
whole way. I learned this early on, but have really been thinking
about it a lot recently because of the poison ivy and all. I just have
to get comfortable with it, try to treat it with whatever I have, and
keep hiking.

So that's what I did today, although I had a slow start. My body was
very tired in the morning, but I did get going by 8, after a nice
breakfast of oatmeal, a clifbar, and some coffee. Those hazelnut
instant packs you sent taste great, Mom. I had 10 miles to make it to
the trail magic, but it was pretty much all uphill, so even though it
wasn't a long distance it was still tough.

I made it to the first shelter at 10:15, a 5 mile distance and more
than 2000 ft. of incline. When I made it, there were two thru's there
I hadn't met before, Gearbomb (a lady), and Swift, who's also from
Maine. We talked about that for a bit. A few minutes later who do I
see but Loon. I hadn't seen him since Trail Days when he was wearing
that dress. He had come from the North, switching to SOBO for a while
I guess. He's also associated with the trail angels who were hosting
the meal that was coming up, so I thanked him for what I knew was
going to be an amazing experience. They do two days of it, and he had
gone to Day 1 yesterday, so he talked it up to all of us. He left with
his hiking buddy Eastwind pretty quick, but I stayed there and took a
long break, mostly because the hiker feed wasn't starting until 3pm
and I didn't want to be too early.

I stayed over an hour, leaving at 11:30. The heat was finally hitting
hard, so the next stretch was filled with lots of sweating and
wipedowns. My bandana was soaked by the end, which came at 2:15 when I
hit the road and saw a piece of paper on the ground with an arrow
pointing to the left and the words, "Hiker Feed 50 yds." under that. I
walked over and saw people setting up some tables, and a few hikers
were already there too, so I took a seat with them and helped myself
to a Capri-Sun. Just like being back in elementary school. Then I saw
there was some chips and dip, so I helped myself to that. It was
Mediterranean dip, and let me tell you it was unbelievable. It had so
many things in it I'd never eat normally, like black olives and feta
cheese, but the combination of all the ingredients was just so good. I
wish I had gotten the recipe.

As more hikers showed up the real magic started happening, and they
used about 4-5 Dutch ovens to cook up lasagna, sweet potatos, this
amazing mix of tatertots, beef, and other stuff, homemade rolls, not
to mention all the cold stuff like fruit salad, cous cous, pasta
salad, fresh veggies, homemade hummus, and so on. Then for dessert
there was hot Dutch oven brownies, apple crisp, and ice cream. Whoa.
Simply amazing, I just couldn't believe the scale of the meal. I was
so full I could barely move for several hours. This meal definitely
rivals how full I'd been at Woods Hole hostel.

The whole thing was fantastic, the food, the people, the conversation,
everything. Everyone was so happy, none more than the people who were
hosting. As things were winding down they spoke to all of us about
hiking the AT and how lucky we all are to be doing such a thing. Then
they handed out marbles as a sort of good luck charm, and to leave
somewhere, anywhere in the world (other than the AT), at some special
place or special moment in our lives. So I won't leave mine on the AT,
but on a future trip somewhere else.

I'm getting tired so I'll wrap it up here. I'm thinking I'll stop in
Big Island tomorrow to go to a medical clinic there. If I can get some
sort of prescription or shot for the poison ivy I will be very happy.
Awesome day today.

Total miles: 761.3