In 1980 a lot of people asked me how I was able to follow the Appalachian Trail. "Did you ever get lost?" Well, most of the time I did ok. The trail is marked with small white blazes on trees or rocks. Whenever a change of direction is coming up there is a double blaze as a warning signal. Most of the time the trail was in the woods going up and down mountains. But the trail did follow dirt roads and sometimes paved roads for short distances in order to connect through populated areas.
One day the trail came out onto a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. I knew that I was only a few miles from crossing a State highway. I followed the dirt road and tried to keep an eye out for blazes. It was late in the day and somehow I missed a blaze because the dirt road suddenly ended. I had missed the trail somewhere along the way. The thought of backtracking (and possibly missing the trail again) was frustrating when I was certain that the State highway had to be only a mile or two straight ahead.
The safe thing to do was turn around and find the trail. But I was 18 and too confident. So I began to cut through the woods due North, certain of finding the State highway. The light was beginning to fade and it was taking too long to find the State highway. I came up to a field fenced in with barbed wire. Since I grew up in the country, I had no problem crossing that fence, hoping that I would be at the highway soon.
But I finally realized that I needed to stop for the night. It would be dark soon and I was hungry. I found a flat place in the field and setup camp. The weather was clear, so I didn't put up my tarp, I often slept out in the open when the weather was good. After a good dinner I settled down into my sleeping bag and began to nod off. But wait, was that a noise? No, go to sleep.
Have you ever felt like someone was staring at you? I couldn't get to sleep. Then I opened my eyes and saw the curious face of a cow staring right at me! She wasn't alone, there were several cows who had come to investigate this strange appearance in their pasture. I got up and shooed them away, but they came right back. I made noise, I tried everything, but they kept coming back, staring, staring, staring, staring.......OK, OK, I had enough. I gathered all of my stuff up, crossed the fence and settled down to sleep. If cows could talk I'm sure they would have said a lot of things about the crazy, lost backpacker sleeping in their pasture! The next morning I was able to walk to a nearby farmhouse and got directions to the State highway. I was more off course than I thought, but I was able to get back on track by noon the next day. "Stick to the trail" I told myself. That's good advice!
This morning I weighed in at 180.2 pounds (another "zero day"). My right calf muscle is still very stiff and sore, so I'm still not able to run. My plans of gardening last night didn't happen either. But I do have a huge salad waiting for my lunch. If I get off track with my weight loss, I remember the cow pasture and remind myself to get on track.
No comments:
Post a Comment