July 17-21
My day off in Etna was one of the nicest I’ve had. I woke up late, cooked myself breakfast, and watched Netflix. Then I walked down to the cafe and enjoyed a great latte. Overall, it was a lot of resting. No one else stayed the night at Kate’s place my second night. So I stayed up watching Netflix and eating ice cream.
I got out of Etna late the following day. Made breakfast and went to the cafe again. I ran into Godongo and we hitched out together.
This entire stretch I felt terrible. First, I was just feeling nauseous and my stomach hurt. All the food in my pack sounded disgusting and made my stomach flip. After a couple days of this, I couldn’t keep anything in me. I would stop to run into the woods multiple times throughout the day. The stomach cramps were terrible, but I kept pushing on, hitting my 27-30 miles each day.
I caught back up to Grimm, Acuna, Rubberball and Mellow. They had been talking about the great pancake challenge in Seiad Valley for the past 500 miles. We all rushed into town, but were too late for breakfast. They decided to stay in town for the night, I continued my journey.
On July 21st I hiked alone most of the day. There was trail magic just before crossing the Oregon border! I opened the cooler and found beer and San Pellegrino!!! I had been craving a Pellegrino for hundreds of miles, but couldn’t find them in the stores. I grabbed the last one, sat on the cooler and drank. I almost burst into tears. Something about being alone, being so close to home and the reward of a Pellegrino was magical and what I needed right then. Again, the trail provides.
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