#155 Pen Mar Co. Pk. to Rocky Mtn. Shelter - Day 80: ATMM1066.7 - ATMM1081.9
Backpacking is as much a mental game as it is physical. Though solitude is one of the things sought after, it take a little while to truly embrace it.............
We all awake to a huge breakfast at the Soolah’s Sunflower Cottage. Fresh eggs from Soolah’s own chickens, local bacon, hot toast and coffee, along with good conversation, fill our spirits as well as our bellies.
Mr. Rook & Dessert Queen are taking a zero day today. Threats of storms keep them off the trail today. If the day turns out to be nice, they’ll tour the area with Soolah checking out historic sites. We won’t see one another on the trail again but I’ve followed some of their journey on their BLOG.
A slight threat of rain hangs in the air this morning. Soolah drives me back to the trailhead at Pen Mar County Park where her friend Linda picked me up yesterday. She asks if she can take a photo for her website. I do, then pose with the park sign again after she drives away for my own files.
Ten minutes later I cross into Pennsylvania and find a sign that reads: Mason Dixon Line - Maryland/Pennsylvania.
Walking across Maryland took a little longer than expected, but the Pennsylvania State line welcomes a stubble-faced hiker, forgiving his tardiness.
There hasn’t been another soul on trail all day. The hiker bubble (the bulk of NOBO - NOrthBOund - thru-hikers) is still is passing through North Carolina into southern Virginia.
Just as I figure on not seeing anyone today, a trail runner rounds a long bend in the trail. Advancing uphill towards me he says “Hi!” then powers on. Until he appeared, I’d been hiking in a daze, still in a bit hung over from the past few days’ heat, but his positive vibe is contagious and fills me with energy.
The runner also ignites flashbacks to my trail running days with Beast and Princess, making me almost miss running. Perhaps I’ll start trail running again when this hike is over, but much shorter distances than before, of course. (I don’t, but not for lack of trying. My body just won’t let me run anymore.)
This is a good story from my old BLOG - WE RAN!
Backpacking is as much a mental game as it is physical. Though solitude is one of the many things sought after, it take a little while to truly embrace it, especially if you have a job where you’re used to being surrounded every day by five-hundred students, dozens of staff members, and your fast paced responsibility is to directly and indirectly serve them all.
It’s impossible to turn your mind off and let it rest. It’s a process that takes a while.
There are several reasons why I’d begun solo hiking over longer distances. One of them being that it takes time to cleanse the mind of all the junk floating around in there.
Some of the junk loops endlessly, uncontrollably, like when a song gets stuck in your head and you can’t get it out. It plays over and over, aggravating the crap out of you all day long.
Long periods of separation from life’s songs is the only way to shake the junk from your head, like separation from junk foods is the only way to cleanse the body of junk food.
I’m writing this segment of the story a few hours before the 2023-2024 Super Bowl - I’ll definitely be needing a junk food cleansing after this food-filled-football-day.