Day Three- Even Slower

 
Day three of my Knobstone Trail hike (Friday, June 19) I got a late start. I'd been managing to get up pretty early for me, and was hiking by 7:30 to get a couple of miles in before the air heated up. However, it had rained in the night this morning. I didn't wake up, and it just takes longer to pack up wet, and so I didn't get on the trail until 9 am. Then, I had to stop almost immediately to fill my water bottles. It was already 74 degrees at 9, and it only went up from there.

Mostly more ups and downs, but there was a short stretch through a nice valley. Except of course, the full sun...



I saw lots and lots of toads on my hike. This one was so red, I had to take his picture.



Love the symmetry of an unfurling fern.



This may be the biggest burl I've ever seen.



But, I was really dragging. By 3 pm it was 87 degrees, and my brain was totally non-functional. I only hiked 6.5 miles in all those hours. I had enough water, so I took over a large campsite, pulled out my camp chair, and just sat still until I was able to even contemplate doing camp chores. I did them slowly, one at a time.



I made myself eat dinner. It was good. I had Dirty rice and beans. But I could only get half of it down, so I saved the rest for breakfast.



The best thing about the site was an absolutely perfect tree to hang the food cache. I got the rope over it on the first try (amazing).



The sky looked clear, so I left the rain fly off the tent. It did not rain, and that way I had a little more air. Very disappointing mileage, but I just could not go in in the heat and humidity.

The blog post from the trail is linked below, but it was very short because I could only get one picture to upload and then I lost connectivity.

In current news: I was really productive today. Got up early to beat the heat here, and worked on my trailer until it got too hot. Will tell more about that in future days. Also, the lawnmower is fixed! I dug up about 20 autumn olive bushes that got too big a start in the lawn. About that many more to go and then I can mow. Woo hoo!

See Dreaming of a Cold Diet Coke