The Chicken and The Triceratops

Miles 0

Camped at hostel in Dillon, CO

I woke up at 3am and knew that was it for me. I felt pretty sick and knew there was no more sleeping. I went out to the living room to mess around on Facebook

Around 4am, John carried his stuff into the living room and started chatting with me about this and that and nothing and everything and eventually gave me the phone number for his uber driver who will drive for cash under the table.

We went to urgent care and got some meds to help me with the altitude, and then spent the next 2+ hours trying to get to Breckenridge via the free bus system. At some point, we had to transfer from one bus to another and there was a half hour wait…and there was a Whole Foods. And we were hungry. So we ended up buying a whole, hot chicken, some broccolini, some bitchin’ sauce, some blue tortilla chips, and some carrots. We were each quite busy gnawing away at a chicken leg, like a couple of heathens, when it was apparent that it was time to get on the bus. We wiped our mouths and clambored on the bus, and Anji stuck the whole chicken carefully into the outside of her pack so it wouldn’t spill chicken juice everywhere. You know the kind. The chicken juice.

We got off the bus at the post office but they only had one package out of two and Anji was still trying not to spill the chicken juice anywhere and the post office guy couldn’t figure out why I was taking photos of Anji in the post office with a rotisserie chicken, and anyway I ended up taking pictures of Anji AND the post office guy AND the chicken who was missing both legs.

So we went down the street and set ourselves up in front of an apartment complex on the lawn and ate a bunch of our food until a dog on a leash wandered by and was far too interested in those chicken bones and besides, our fingers were pretty greasy at that point. So we went down to Starbucks and downed a giant coffee and spent some quality time coordinating with other hikers, trying to meet up for dinner and consequently missing them. They were on one bus coming to us and we were on another bus going to them and the package was sent to another town all together and everything was mixed up and I was so tired I almost cried. I literally couldn’t do a resupply at the store, so Anji took me back to the hostel where I passed out for a few hours.

I got up to get some water and some guy in the kitchen started showing me pictures of rocks he found, believing them to be fossils of parts of pterodactyls and tyranosaurus rexs, triceratops, and saber tooth tigers. Fully engulfed in his delusions, and so eager to share his findings, and so reeking of stale cigarettes, I couldn’t help but think that if someone had to have a delusion, it would be best to have one so fun and rewarding! Just today, he’d dug up a 200-pound rock and brought it home on his skateboard because it was the chest cavity of another pterodactyl.

I was finally rescued by the owner of the hostel, who told the guy he was desperately needed in the garage, putting some bolts in a project. The guy got really excited about it and left, leaving me to get back to my comfy bed and the slumber I desperately needed in order to get well.