The Mouse and A Heart Explosion

Miles 11.7

Camped at mile marker 45.3

A mouse pooped in my cup overnight. No shit. He pooped right there in my fucking cup. Like, 15 little poops. Anji says he had a party in there. I was like, yeah woo-hooo. Little fucker.

I went down to the stream and rinsed out my cup and scrubbed it with sand and brought it back to camp and we boiled it with filtered water and soap and then it boiled over and put out the stove. And I said Dammit a lot.

I scrubbed it and scrubbed it until Anji declared it finally clean and no longer feral with several days of food and adorned with mouse poop.

I rinsed it out a bunch of times with filtered water but couldn’t bring myself to drink a cup of coffee.

We walked along, like we do, doop-doop-doop and eventually came upon a road where we plopped ourselves down and made breakfast. Right there on the road. By then, that little bastard mouse was a distant memory, and I slurped up my coffee quite happily and had some oatmeal and dried berries and strawberry whey protein shake all mixed together, to boot.

Then we were back at it. Walkin’ along, all doop-doop-doop, and pretty soon we came across some signs saying Rifle Range Nearby – Please Stay on Trail. And that was entertaining so we took some photos of that. And then all of a sudden I saw a parking lot and someone dropping off a hiker and turning around.

Wait! I yelled. Are you going to Bailey? It was a trail angel we’d spoken to online about getting a ride. He denied us the ride because there were other hikers ahead of us on the road who were hitching.

Dammit, I mumbled. It’s my birthday.

25 seconds later, another car ambled by on this old dusty road. I stuck out my thumb, and sure enough, she stopped! She was awesome and amazing and fabulous and took us straight to the post office where we spent an hour sorting out our resupply boxes of new food we’d mailed to ourselves. I also sent home a bunch of gear that I don’t need right now and don’t feel like carrying around anymore.

Packs freshly heavy with 5 days of food, we set off to The Smiling Pig for some good old down home pulled pork cobb salad concoction, then a quick coffee and it was back to trail. Away from the smell of asphalt. Away from the noise of trucks. Away from the smell of barbeque and gasoline and general city-like stench. Back to nature. Back to sweating our asses off climbing uphill for hours just to gain a few more miles.

We entered the Lost Creek Wilderness and were slapped in the face with beauty, the likes of which I didn’t know existed. They weren’t stands of aspen trees like at home. They were Forests of Aspen Trees. They went on and on and reached clear up into the clouds. They were so tall, and they all had eyeballs on their bark. All blink blink blink looking at you.

I think my I’m going to have A Heart Explosion, this is so beautiful. I said.

Yeah. Anji said.

She pointed at a tree whose bark was falling off.

I guess his heart did explode from it all, I said.

Yeah. Anji said.

We glided along through the wilderness.

My birthday treat.