E-Dribble

The dawning of Adventure Thursday found me drinking my second cup of coffee and wondering how much weight I would need to lose before I would be able to see my toes again while standing up. I eventually decided that it would be easier just to ask others to check on my feet every once in a while.

I had hoped that Orthoguy would pick something to do today that would gently ease us back into spring. Nothing too strenuous, but something that got us outside. Maybe kite flying or bubble blowing.

I arrived at Oguy’s house and we loaded up the Jeep after he explained that MXCR and LL100 had a new cache out. Alarm bells went off in my head. I smiled uncertainly as I contemplated “accidentally” getting my foot crushed under the wheel of the Jeep. I decided against it. I would later regret this decision.

After the car had reached a speed that prohibited my jumping out, he explained that we would be walking along the Appalachian trail while “zipping” out to the cache. I swear to God, he said we would “zip” out to the cache. I wanted to believe that we could “zip” out to the cache. I wanted to believe it so bad that I could taste it. In the end though, I couldn’t. It had taken 34 years of being the younger brother, but I finally realized that it didn’t really matter how bad I wanted something. I was at the mercy of el muy terrible hermano and his whim would dictate how much pain I would have to endure today.

We arrived at the parking area and the first thing I noticed was how fit everyone in the area was. There were healthy people with large packs walking to and fro quite briskly. We got out of the car and my brother threw me our lunch: an apple and a bag of beef jerky. We were to share the beef jerky. We did get our own liter of water though, which seemed more than ample.

I put my pack on, all the while expecting to get hit in the back of the head with something thrown by one of the real hikers. They took the high road though, and we made it to the trail head to begin our “zip” towards the cache. During the initial hour of walking, we passed 8 or so hikers, exchanging smiles and well wishes.

Going into the second hour, I still exchanged smiles, but had to forego the well wishes simply because I could no longer control my breathing. A group of six hikers stepped to the side for us to pass and I took a deep breath while still 20 feet away in hopes that I could keep from embarrassing myself while going by. Unfortunately, they were a polite bunch, with all of them greeting us. Having to respond, I quickly realized that I already had too much air in my lungs, so said hello to the first three with the air I had grabbed twenty feet earlier. I had three more people to say hi to but no longer had any air. I tried to greet them while breathing in, but I really needed some oxygen and I think I breathed in so hard that I ended up pulling the do-rag off of the second hiker and the third might have lost the contents of his shirt pocket.

Thankfully, we had a break to log Whiteoak Stamp. After signing the log, I tried to refuse to get back up, but Oguy just grabbed the loop on the back of my pack and dragged me back to the trail. I also chose this time to pull “I have to get back for dinner with my child” out of my bag of tricks, but again, brother elder was unfazed. We resumed our walk.

We eventually found ourselves within a few hundred feet of the cache and we saw a break through the bushes. The view looked like something that you might see in a movie, with the trees opening up to frame a seemingly endless range of mountain ridges. We went right past the cache coords and out onto the rock outcropping. We couldn’t believe the view! We took a break(much needed for I), took some pictures of each other and just tried to soak all of it in. We eventually grabbed the cache, then walked a couple hundred more feet down to the large outcropping, where we decided to eat our lunch. I got to eat my miniature apple and half a bag of beef jerky, washing it down with my liter of water. It was a lighter lunch than you might expect for a portly person that had walked 4 and a half miles, but luckily I have spent the majority of my adult life stockpiling carbs for a situation just like this.

After our meal, we began heading back, with a short break to wander amongst the plane wreckage at the top of the hill and contemplate life and it’s sometimes abrupt endings.

I retraced all of my steps back to the Jeep and thankfully we only came across one hiker. Even more luckily, he was more tired than I and we merely rolled our eyes at each other as we passed. I had developed a more pronounced waddle as the day had progressed and I looked like a weeble-wobble as I trekked through the woods. Orthoguy took this time to suggest that I consider adopting “trail running” as a past time. Words were exchanged which must be excluded from this write up.

We eventually heard hollers and smelled smoke, signaling the parking area. As we stepped into the clearing, I tried to actually pick up my feet while walking and to get rid of the thousand yard stare that I had picked up 5 miles back. I didn’t want these hardened trail masters to see a guy that left the parking lot 5 hours earlier shuffling back to the car that he had arrived in. I think I managed it, but I had to stop talking to muy terrible hermano to do it. I could no longer talk and walk at the same time.

We got in the car and headed back to the house. We both enjoyed another bottle of water and the ending of the day. Arriving at the house, I loaded my car with my gear and we both said what a great time we had. We hugged and bro said that we needed to do it again next week. I heartily agreed. I then went home and called Verizon to change my phone number.

He may get me in the woods again, but it won’t be without a fight.