Miles Today: 13.3
Mile Marker: 663.0
Last night the wind was howling. I finally put in ear plugs to get some sleep. Then of course I overslept. When I woke up, I noticed my left ankle was a bit swollen. Occasionally as I'm walking down the trail I'll step on a stick with my right foot causing it to lift up and be caught by the front of my left foot forward. This causes the stick to pivot and push the front of my foot out as it comes forward, and that causes my knee and ankle to twist in a direction they weren't prepared for. For some reason this happened about five times yesterday. It happens with my right foot too, but I've had problems with my left ankle since the beginning so I notice it more. I try to avoid taking painkillers because I don't want to mask any warning signs my body is trying to give me. However because it was a bit inflamed, I took some advil and laid back down for a while.
Finally around 11:00 I got going. I had some pretty good momentum going until I ran into The Captains. The Captain is a Trail Angel who lives next to the trail, but with a creek in between. He rigged up this cool little zip line trolley for hikers to get across. He lets you camp in his yard for free, use his WiFi, electricity, and has free sodas in the fridge on his back porch. Initially I was only going to stop and take a picture of the zip line. Then I saw free soda, and that was the perfect excuse to try the trolley. I had a “Dr. Peppy”, an orange soda, played fetch with his dog, and then zip lined back to the trail.
Later in the day it started to rain, but not too badly. I was going to hike until I hit my fifteen mile goal, but I started to develop a hot spot on my left foot. Normally I would tape over it and keep moving, however I can't really do that in the rain. Not wanting the hot spot to become a blister I called it a day an hour early and set up my tent.
One final insult to injury, I ran out of stove fuel halfway through cooking. Thankfully I have ramen for dinner right now, and it rehydrates pretty well without heat. Two more nights of cold meals before I can buy more. And yes I could cook over a fire, but I'm not about to go to that level of effort for ramen.