Synchronistic run-ins

9/21

3D Cracker Jack and I were busy multitasking on the king sized bed in the evening: watching miss congeniality, facebooking, blogging, while each reading our own issue of backpacker magazine. Too much multitasking! I had a hard time falling asleep. I attribute it to staring at screens for hours yesterday and night. 

A highlight of my night was taking olive oil from the hiker box, putting it on a washcloth and rubbing it all over my entire self as a moisturizer. If you have never tried this, I highly recommend doing it. It makes you feel so soft and new, and you smell like olive oil. It's fantastic. I justify this strange thing by assuming the ancient Greeks used to do this. Sorry (not sorry at all) if this grosses you out. 

Finally left Snoqualomie at 2:00. Hiked only 9 miles. Had breakfast with 3D, Cracker Jack and 3Ds friend and wife who just so happened to be in Snoqualomie. Accidental magical run-in. Best meal yet in Snoqualomie- banana and blueberry pancake with blueberry compote and two eggs over e. Dinner last night was a salmon ceaser salad, which was just okay. For lunch earlier I had a burger from aardvark food truck with cream cheese and bacon, a little too salty for my taste buds. Breakfast the day before was eggs over e and French toast, not the best French toast. Okay, enough about food, (I definitely had to loosen my hip belt a lot after two days of pure eating food)! Spent the morning downloading podcasts to listen to on trail. I haven't done this at all, but everyone seems to be doing it. I've had enough silence in the woods at this point. 

Another crazy magical run-in...

Walking up the very steep and very populated by day hikers, myerberg alternate route (goes to hot springs and shaves off 10 miles of PCT.) I plug my head into my music and booked it up with a full pack. Feeling a little annoyed by people who don't give those going uphill the right of way. 

*for anyone who wants to start hiking, please follow this rule, give uphill people the right of way, and hope that you get the same courtesy in return. 

I feel a little bad, not saying hi or making eye contact with these people who just jaunt downhill against my grain, but when someone does pull over for me, I graciously say "thank you, I appreciate it so much, have a great day" and look them in the eyes. It is my way of reinforcing good behavior. Paying it back to those conscientious hikers who pull over. 

Wow, I digress! I think those of you reading my blog know how I tell stories and am a meandering, babbling, tangential ranter (or ADD, to put it simply, but I refuse to be labeled by the APA/DSM!)

So this magical run in... Peppa comes up behind me as I'm talking to two women who asked if I was camping up there for the night. I responded, well I'm going to Canada, explaining that this is a divergent alternate route from the pct for about 25 miles, that connects back to the pct. I'm here for the hot springs and 10 less miles in rugged Washington terrain. Then the next couple who run into us and overhear our thru-hiker conversation, is the magic. The man says he hiked the AT In '78. I say to myself "hmmm 78, that sounds familiar, maybe that's when Dom Marino (very good family friend) hiked the AT." A shot in the dark, I ask this man if he knows dom Marino, he says oh my god yes, we hiked many miles together! Ah such a synchronicity. This is Charles Wiley and his wife.

Ran into Bumblebee and Seahawk today, but I think they passed me when I went to dig a hole. 

New shoes kinda suck. They are a tad too narrow and yet somehow not secure enough, like my feet and ankles still wiggle around. Not cool! Whatever, only two-3 hundred miles left. :O! 

Camping by myself tonight by thunder creek. 

Do you remember? The 21st night of September?