Day 19
Miles 0
My glasses smashed all crookedy against my eye when Bosco whacked me in the face. But at least I was sparkly clean.
It was bitterly cold, and my quilt sleeping bag didn’t cut the mustard. I woke up with my back side all cold and moved the quilt around to cover it up, then woke up because some other uncovered part was cold. Repeat seven hundred and thirteen and a half times.
I finally got up. It must’ve been 5am. Sophie called out to me and I told her I was just going to make some coffee because I was too cold to sleep. She invited me into her tent.
I took that invite and grabbed my quilt. It was easily 10 degrees warmer in her tent. With the two of us in there, it got really warm really fast and we both fell into a nice sleep until about 7:15.
Lovely-lovely-lovely.
I took a full bath down by the creek. I lay down naked in the stream, hidden in a private cove by giant willow bushes with only the Sun to see me. Then I got out and lathered up my whole body. I got bottles of water from the stream and walked away a bit and poured them over me to rise off the soap. I felt incredibly clean for the first time in 19 days. Even my fingernails were clean. The water was cold and invigorating. My breath caught in my throat whenever it touched me, and then the sun quickly warmed it and dried it off.
It felt unbelievable.
We ate a lot of food and felt generally amazing.
I called the CHP again to see if they’d help us get across Hwy 89 tomorrow at 1pm. They said they’d call me right back.
I’m standing in a small space in a meadow – the only place I found with service. I said.
Keep standing there. Dispatch said. We’ll put this down as ‘time sensitive’.
So I waited for an hour until it started raining and I had to go back to camp.
The goats were tied up under tarps to keep them dry, and the gear was piled under a tarp as well.
Sophie and I crawled into her tent and by the time I sang her the old song – Johnathan W. Astor, the rain was already done.
I untied Oatcake and took him back to the highline.
I leaned down to untie Bosco and he threw his head around, fussing, and whacked me right in the face. My glasses smashed and I thought he broke them. My hand flew to my head to make sure I wasn’t bleeding. I wasn’t. I walked toward the creek to gather myself for a moment.
Sophie hurried after me to see if I was okay. She gathered some groceries to put on my head and I took some Advil.
No More Whacking-Of-Faces. I told him.
We’ll see tomorrow if I get a bruise.
But. At least I was Sparkly Clean.
Categories: Life