Nothing in town opens until 7:00 and that’s not even for certain. The restaurant across the street was supposed to be open until 7:00 last night but they were closed. I bought an extra breakfast at Dollar General and have leftovers, but I want to see if they will be open at 7:00. So until then I am doing nothing but organizing and packing everything to be ready to go quickly.

By the time 7:00 rolls around the store does indeed turn their open sign on. This is both good and bad. It is good because I can get a hot cooked breakfast. It is bad because now I am carrying an extra breakfast and my pack looks pretty heavy.

Breakfast was an omelette with hash browns with rye toast and one coffee. I am the only person in the place the entire time, so I have a feeling this could be one of the places that goes out of business soon. Or maybe Sunday at 7:00 is just not a busy time around here.

I get back to the hotel and load up and head out at 7:45. Indeed my pack is heavy. I have bought too much food again. I am supposed to be carrying only 3 days of food but it’s probably more like 4 and 1/2.

After this load, all of my resupplies are one or two days so this should be the heaviest my pack is for the rest of the trip. It doesn’t help that I’m carrying two Dunkin’ donuts coffees instead of one. I was expecting to have to drink one of them this morning.

There is an extra 5 lbs of fear in my pack. There is a saying that goes the weight of your pack is proportional to the sum of your fears. My fears last night were there I was not going to be able to have breakfast next door, but would end up eating my Dollar General goodies.

I leave out of town on the same road I came in on, so there is nothing new to see for two miles. But at least the people are friendly and wave to me as I walk and they pass by me.

The trail all morning is 95% on double track. The remaining 5% is on special built trails. The trails in both cases are in good condition and a few muddy spots are easy to navigate on rocks or roots. My feet have been dry all morning long and it has been glorious.

The highlight of the morning is waiting long enough so that the B&B in Birchwood is done serving breakfast so that I can call them. This is where I will have my shoes mailed but I need to call them first and make sure it’s okay to mail a package to myself at their address.

I have decent signal at 11:00 so I call them get the permission, then send the email out to the shoe store with the address. The shoe store is closed today but I will call them first thing when they open tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. to make sure they get the email and send the shoes out Monday. I would hate to get to the B&B on Saturday and find at the shoes haven’t made it yet.

I will get to a primitive camp just before noon, so I make that my target for lunch. But about a mile before that point, I come to a wayside that has toilets, water, and picnic benches. So lunch comes early and more comfortably.

When I do get to the campsite, it is adequate. It has some nice log benches to sit on. But I enjoyed the pit toilet and the water fountain much better.

After the small section of trail with the campsite comes another road walk. But just before the trail emerges to the road it crosses a rail trail that looks like it’s dedicated to ATV use because it has a speed limit of 55 posted on it. I don’t know of any bicyclists that are going 55 miles per hour. From the map it just looked like it was another road, but it’s a special ATV road instead.

The road walk takes a little over an hour and when I come to the trailhead there are two cars parked there. Oh boy! I get to see hikers today! Within 30 or 40 minutes I see four ladies come towards me and pass me. They must be the owners of the cars and are heading back.

The trail now is mostly on old logging roads and is pretty easy hiking except for a lot of blowdowns that take a while to cross over. They are taking us towards the lake and then they’ll have us hike north on the east side, and then south on the west side before the trail turns west again.

The trail along the east edge of the lake is a bit muddy and has lots of roots and is just annoying to hike on. It wears me out and it’s almost time for second coffee. There should be a campsite when I hit the North end of the Lake. But I must have passed it, because before I know it I’m going west across the north end of the lake.

The map shows a parking area for the Lodge so I might be able to sit down there and have a snack with my coffee. Missing the campsite turns out to be a blessing in disguise. Because what they label as a parking lot is actually a full set of facilities. There is a bar and grill, a million picnic tables, water, bathrooms, and showers.

And as soon as I set my pack down, I spot the four ladies that I had passed several hours ago. They recognized me too. We chatted for 20 minutes or so until they left. But in the meantime I ordered a BLT and a lemonade. I was planning on eating my frozen dinner so I could get rid of the carton but it’s too hard to pass up a BLT.

I don’t leave the lodge until after 5:00 and I have seven and a half miles to go. This will put me at the campsite probably close to 7:30.

The trail in the west side is much better than it was on the east side. It gains and loses a lot of elevation but it is well-graded with not a lot of roots and rocks but does have many steps.

At the south end of the lake the trail turns west again. The trail does follow some logging roads but it is mostly in marshy areas. I am slipping and sliding around in a lot of places.

Yes, there is a trail in there somewhere. And somewhere underneath is a pile of mud ready to swallow my shoe.

And then the inevitable happens. I slipped with multiple comedic steps and end up falling on a log pretty hard. My right forearm bashed right into it, and both knees and both hands are in the mud. My arm is pretty painful but it only scraped it and is already starting to welt up. I could have easily broken it, but I think the last-second shift turned it into a glancing blow. This is going to be very sore tomorrow.

The rest of the evening has me in a foul mood. The trail continues to be muddy and it is slowing me down. I don’t end up making it to the campsite until 7:40 when it is barely light enough to hike but I need my light to scout out a site for my tent.

I get everything set up and crawl into the tent. Instead of trying to clean my legs, I just put my leggings on and I’ll deal with the mud tomorrow.

For tonight’s dinner it will be a bad spicy chicken sandwich and a barely edible hamburger. Note to self: don’t pack out frozen sandwiches anymore. But I get to top it off with a piece of key lime pie. Yes, I actually packed out a slice of key lime pie with me today.

Emotion of the day, Exhaustion

I got a slightly late start because of waiting for breakfast. And that set the pace for the rest of the day. I spent so much time trying to get the shoe shipment situated. And I wasn’t expecting to be a 30 minute ordeal.

So it seemed like a rush all day just to make the campsite I was aiming for. And I think one of the factors of me slipping in the mud is trying to go too fast when the conditions are against me.

The soles of my shoes are worn almost completely smooth. New shoes definitely would have helped in this situation. But I have five more days to hike before that can happen. Let’s hope I can survive five more days.