CDT Day 12 (5/30/23)
Miles 283.8 (Red line 352.8)- 312 (Blue line 13.7) (28.2 miles)
Verbatim
Good day. Good mileage. Good company with Adjunct who is a philosophy professor of Ecology. He’s a professor up in Missoula, Montana. Apparently Fixie is an ocean plastics specialist. So I need to leave her a note tomorrow at Davilla Ranch about my book. (Again, no book. This blog instead). Maybe she can help me get connected to good resources!
I enjoyed the more mountainous hiking today. At the top of Mangus Mountain, where I’m camped, I talked with Patrick who works as the fire lookout. Being a fire lookout would be a GREAT! gig for me (you) next summer. Go to USA Jobs.com and search the key words “forest service.” Then look for fire lookout and answer the questionnaire. Pick your ten favorite spots and hit submit! If you were a fire lookout you could read and write. You could go back to school and study. You could do all sorts of incredible things. You could work ski resorts and fire lookouts. Not a bad gig. Although that may not put you in the best space. There might be better things.
Your shorts lining is so gruff it’s giving you butt chaffing! The skin outside your left testicle IS BLEEDING!!! Has that ever happened before? It’s going to sting in the shower tomorrow.
Also. Over 12 days you’ve averaged 26 miles per day. Nice! That’s right on the mark for where you need to be. Good job!
Post Note
OH YEAH. I forgot about the bleeding testicle… It’s amazing what we blank out. All sunshine and roses on this side of the experience, but man, that was miserable. I walked for the next ten(?) days holding my balls with one of my hands to preserve it from rubbing against the seam of my shorty McShort shorts. One hand would get tired so I’d switch to the other. I’ve never touched myself for that long before. LOL. Oh god. Haha, I can remember thinking that joke was funny while walking. I think I felt like I needed to explain to the people I came across why my hand was in my pants. So, I tried to to make light of it. You know? It’s funny. But saying “I’ve never touched myself for that long before” always seemed to land pretty rough, as I’m imagining it still does as you read. I’d like to think my sun addled brain is excused from the cringe of such a joke. But maybe not. My humor is atrocious.
I’m not sure why I thought shorty McShort shorts were a good idea. I remember shopping for shorts with L before the trip. She was astounded at how quickly I picked out two pairs of shorts. We’re talking 5 minutes tops from the time we walked in the door. The short shorts were black (for good hiker style) and the other pair was olive green and had a liner. I told her I hate shopping and know what I want. She told me to try them on. I said, “How can I try these on in the store if I don’t intend to wear underwear on trail?” That makes sense, right?
Well. I went and tried them on over my underwear and it felt miserable. So, I bought them anyways.
And here I was with a chafed testicle because I bought some shorts that held a seam way too closely to my body. I think I thought that if I didn’t wear underwear, and had a pair of shorts that was really high, I would ventilate and keep dry, thus preventing sweat which leads to chafe. Instead I was in a load of pain. Like, shooting pain you couldn’t predict. I eventually switched to the olive green pair. Never had chafe again. But, the black pair was made from plastic. So, they went in the bottom of my pack.
Also. Nice job with the positive self talk, Andrew.