app trail day 2

Day 2                                                                                                                                                                             9/13/10

Priest Shelter to North Fork of Piney Rivers

I am sooo over it. I want to go home. Just kidding.

Today we got up around 11 and had some oatmeal. Oatmeal always makes me think of porridge, which makes me think of Oliver Twist “May I please hove some mouh porridge, suuuh?” Then we pooped in the woods and used our ipood-so much for constipation from MREs. The ipood is obviously a play on the iPod and it’s a shovel to dig your “cat hole” that holds t.p. in the handle. They’ve thought of everything. Then, we packed up, Seth was gone forever purifying water and I got scared and then I called my parents and they didn’t pick up, to hear me tell them I was alive.

Then off we were. Today was supposed to be easier and I guess it was-just much longer. Started off real easy-downhill-letting gravity help. Saw an apple tree, commented on how a friend was flirting with a guy who used the word ”bananas” as an adjective in a text and how no real man would use that word in a sentence unless he was talking about fruit or was one. We ascended up some and saw “Cash hollow rock” that had the little priest, the cardinal, the friar, etc. I concluded we’d have to do something special to remember what gorgeous photo pertained to what gorgeous view. I held up $ in a pic for that one. Then, we got to “Spy Rock.” Looked like that big, talking, rock giant from Neverending Story- good movie. I’d been whining that I was starving for a while so we decided to eat there. Left our bags at the bottom of the rock (no way we would have been able to get up there with them) and mountain/rock climbed up. The technical apparently is “rock scrambling.” That was fun-kept hearing my family say “be careful” and “don’t do anything stupid.” I got my foot stuck in a crack while climbing up, but I dislodged it. Got up to almost the top and that was amazing. 360 degree view of beautiful mountains/hills/valleys. Back in the Civil War, confederate spies used to climb up there and well, spy. Luv learning fun history facts like that. Posed for that one pretending I was holding a monocular. Took a video of it. So windy up there and so amazing. Climbed to where our MREs-chicken pesto with pasta were cooking and ate those with salami and bread. Mmm thinly sliced deli meats, Then we successfully climbed back down. Oh yeah Seth saw a snake before going to Spy Rock right on the trail. Good thing he was leading because I would have definitely freaked out. Snakes don’t scare me if I know to expect them and if I have knolwdge that they are not poisonous. I’ll wrap a boa constrictor around my neck-and have. I think I moved at about a snails pace after Spy Rock. I just kinda trekked along with a amiserable look on my face falling way behind Seth who kept stopping, and while waiting for me reading his guide book and giving me little stats on mileage and elevation. Finally got to shelter 6.9 miles into the day (we did 9 miles today shoot me). There was a mix between level ground and ups and downs but a lot easier than yesterday but soo much longer than yesterday. My tootsies were starting to hurt too. No blisters yet thanks to my awesome boots but painful. My legs can go on forever, but my lower back not so much. With the pack on, I know that I look like Quasi Moto (how do you spell that?) and when these 3 weeks are over and I take the pack off, I’ll still look like Quasi Moto. Blanche to Dorothy “and when did you start caring about your looks?” Dorothy replies, “I don’t know Blanche, it must have been when I came down from the bell tower and had my humped removed.” Gotta luv the G.G.s. So yes, finally got to the first shelter that we were not staying at and saw some men there-2 of them. We went to the stream-more like a puddle for some badly needed water and I admonished Seth on giving too much information such as specifics/timeline. He called me paranoid. I said I could get raped and that you never know who is crazy and the convo went on from there. Hey ya never know right? Better to be safe than sorry. Gave my tootsies a little rub and we were off for 2 more miles to the next camp site that we’d stay at. Randomly saw a ladder on a tree with no owner to be found and eventually got to our camp site. Seth is getting mad at me because I keep gasping at bugs. Anywho, Seth and I wanted to shower so we quickly set up the tent, I changed into my bikini and he filed up the pocket shower (a bag that you fill up with waterthat you hang from a tree that has a little spout thing like a water bottle) and we took turns taking freezing cold showers. I didn’t wash my hair because it was pretty cold outside and I didn’t want to get sick. That was a hilarious shower and kind of fun. Glad I am all clean now and have on all clean clothes. Hopefully I can get a shower every other day? Then Seth made some velveeta and tuna mmm one of my faves even when I’m not camping. We tore that shit up. Now we’re in our tent all comfy listening to some crazy assortment of chirping bug noises reminiscent to a bad Pringles commercial. And we keep seeing ferns that remind us of dinosaurs-can’t leave out that key detail. Oh yeah, there’s a guy at this camp site we met who just celebrated his 47^th birthday a couple of days ago on the trail-hope he doesn’t kill us in our sleep-where is my pepperspray anyway? Ha until tomorrow si Dios quiere.