Day 103 : Exhausted In The Trees

25 miles today

720 miles to go

Deb drives me back to the trailhead way before the sun comes up. We stop at the local breakfast place and I get my last big breakfast for a while. Pancakes and eggs. I don't know why, but ever since I've started this hike I've had a fondness for pancakes. These are a perfect send off. 

Deb drops me off at the trailhead around sixish. I don't feel like walking today. I feel like being done. I plod through the forest in my new shoes. I feel like I'm plodding, like I have no oomph in my steps, like I'm moving through molasses. I know my pack is full with a new resupply of food for four days, perhaps that is the reason? The forest is thick and impossible to tell where I'm going. I just follow the trail, on and on. The mosquitos are lurking in the forest. Supposedly there aren't any, so many people have told me so, but there are. These apparently are the hardy survivor mosquitos. Like a motorcycle gang of mosquitos doing whatever it takes to survive. I feel a little like Mad Max. Running the gauntlet, only instead of a car on a road in the middle of a post-apocalyptic desert, I'm walking a trail in a green forest in modern day Oregon. The mosquitos are the same as the motorcycle gang though. They are doing everything they can to stop me. They mob me whenever I stop. I stop and quickly put on insect repellent. They hover close, annoying and warning me with their incessant whining. Is this worth it? This is so miserable. It's hot again. The cold front that I walked to my zero is gone. Replaced with abnormally high temperatures for here at this time of year. I just want to escape into air conditioning. I want to sit in a soft comfy chair and drink a banana blueberry smoothie. I close my eyes and imagine it. Oomph, don't close your eyes! Watch the trail. 

I arrive at Brahma Lake. My planned stopping place for the night. Mosquitos abound looking for a free lunch. That won't be me I decide as I apply a fresh layer of insect repellent. I cook my dinner while sitting on a perfectly sized log. This would be a beautiful place without the mosquitos and if it were about fifteen degrees cooler. Two section hiker groups arrive just as I'm climbing into my tent. One from the north the other from the south. They seem oblivious to the annoy racket they are making tromping about in the bushes, talking to each other like they are at a rock concert. They are chit-chatting about the most inane things. Almost like they are talking just to keep up a noisy do to keep the animals away. I am so tired it doesn't faze me, except my attitude. I fall to sleep quickly, before dark and before the last story is told.

I wake up in the middle of the night. Snoring, it's everywhere. I don't want to camp like this. I want to hear water flowing, or wind in the pines. Not snoring, like I'm at some slumber party. A filthy grimy slumber party in the dirt. This is not for me.