Today was a better day. While the trail was actually a little bit more difficult, especially with a stiff descent into Port Clinton, my cough from the last several days is almost remediated. I owe it to all your prayers and Mother Mary. Although my feet are still fairly painful, perhaps I’m getting used to walking on the rocks. To pass the time today, I made some example videos of different kinds of rocks that we hike across such as 100% trail that we can go our full pace, 75% trail, 50% trail, and 25% trail, which are essentially boulder fields.
When I got into town, I stopped at the world-famous Port Clinton barbershop. There are really knows words to describe it. I’ll post some pictures tomorrow. Next, I found the Saint John’s pavilion, which is a church pavilion that the parish allows hikers to use to spend the night. I’m gonna spend the next two nights here. It turns out that there is a shuttle that runs three times a day from Hamburg, Pennsylvania, which is home to the largest Cabela’s in the United States. The shuttle comes to the pavilion specifically to pick up AT hikers and take them into town to buy gear at Cabela’s. Since I’m taking a zero day tomorrow, I’m going to ride into Cabela’s in the morning, do some shopping, stuff my face with restaurant food, then come back here to the pavilion one last night. I’m taking a zero day tomorrow for several reasons. First my feet are killing me, they need to rest. Second, it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, and that makes for a miserable day.
Even though the trail was harder today, I think my spirits were higher primarily because I had more of a right attitude today. Yesterday was very hard, one of those days that you fantasize dozens of reasons why you should pull off the trail. Hiking is like that, good days and bad days.
Today’s mileage: 9.2
Total trail miles: 194.2