Thursday, August 25, 2016

Day 8, August 19

Day 8, Friday, August 19. ZERO miles day. 

Dear trail friends. 

I caught the shuttle from the ranch into Stehekin and went to the ranger's office to reserve a campsite for tomorrow. (I had learned to my horror that even pct thru-hikers were expected to reserve campsites.) Then I did my laundry and called Chris on the satellite phone. Not only was the wifi too weak to upload my blogs - it was too weak to send or receive email. 

I ran into a hiker who recognized me and reminded me that we met in Sierra City in 2013. His trail name is Chuckles Rocketship and he was the person who inspired me to get an emergency beacon.  We agreed to meet for dinner and in the meantime I had a long nap- with a dream about an African American woman - at that time "negro" - who helped manage the house and children when my mother worked and later became a family friend - her name was Esther Bell and I thought of her as the one "real grownup" in my world. In the dream she was dying and it was important to me to go see her and tell her that I love her. When I woke up I wondered if Esther didn't in part signify my PCT self - who is a real grownup in the sense that when things don't go her way she doesn't look around for who to blame, she just figures out what she is going to do in response. I thought it was interesting that I was not going to say goodbye in the dream. I was going to say "I love you." Maybe endings are not so much about formal closure and goodbye, after all. Maybe the dream is trying to teach me they are opportunities for recognizing the depth and quality of the love and really expressing and honoring it. 

After my nap I decided to go for a swim. I had a lot of resistance - concern about using my town dress as a swimsuit and whether it would dry in time for dinner (it did) and concern about trying to get into and out of the water and swim with my imperfect right shoulder (where despite rotator cuff surgery I have lost the ability to lift the arm overhead particularly where strength is required).  This makes me fearful of water, which I never was before, because so many of my natural spontaneous ways of moving through water aren't possible anymore. But I dived in and did a few breast strokes. I also swam under water and doggy paddled a little. I was glad I did - though the shoulder has hurt since (hurts right now typing)   Photo 1 shows the beautiful place where I went swimming in Lake Chelan. 

 

I had invited Chuckles Rocketship to join me for dinner.  We had a wonderful dinner conversation about what we had learned from the PCT, and he treated me to dinner.  Photo 2 shows the two of us. (Guess which one is me.) We are both finishing the PCT in the coming week. He will arrive in Canada Wednesday, I will arrive probably Thursday or Friday. He has been section-hiking for five years, I for four. 

 

And I forgot to show you the photo I took this morning of my little tent cabin at the ranch. So that will be photo 3. 

 

That's all. Back to the trail tomorrow. 

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