Mile 2016 to 2041. “Mt. Jefferson”
I am all about my ear plugs. Ever since Tehachapi when we slept next to very active train tracks, I have realized the power of these small squishy items. I’ve found that when sleeping in the out-of-doors, there are quite a few sounds in the night that can and will wake you up. Most of these sounds are not growling bears next to your tent, so they don’t register in your sleepy state, and you roll over and close the good ole eye lids. However, in the morning, you can tell that you didn’t sleep that soundly.
That’s where ear plugs come in. Last night was windy, rainy, and downright loud. I had my best sleep on trail. Rain? Please, I don’t notice that nonsense. Tent flapping about? Whatevs. As long as some large animal isn’t munching on my toes, i’m more or less dead to the world.
After the best night's sleep ever, the morning was crisp and eerily pretty. We were in a cloud for most of the day and Mt. Jefferson kept disappearing and reappearing on the whim of the clouds.
I conducted a little business call on the side of the mountain and felt like a champion (I am not the inventor of this concept. Liz led the way in this endeavor early on in the desert). We stopped for lunch and laid out our wet tents and sleeping bags under the overcast sky and hoped they would dry out a tad. They did. A tad.
Nothing particularly notable happened at lunch, but it was quite enjoyable. Nice to have the group back together with solid banter all around. By the time we got back on trail we were all a little shocked that it had been over two hours… Whoops!
The clouds closed in throughout the afternoon and some light rain came and went toward the evening. Our streak of 100 sunny days (okay, not that many, but a heck of a lot) has ended, and we all realized how much we took the dry weather for granted. Buck up kiddos! Washington looms ahead, in all its rainy, mountainy goodness.
