CDT Day 58 (7/15/23)

Miles 1384.6 (Red like 1601.6)- 1413.3 (Red line 1630.3) (28.7 miles)

Verbatim

My stomach issues continue. I had some really bad cramping and took a poop. There was undigested bits of the mango I’d eaten in the poop. I inspected them really closely, worried that they might be fat globules since they were yellow and slimy. I’d looked up the symptoms of Giardia since becoming concerned and saw that greasy or fatty poop was one result of infection.

I packed out way to much food. Or maybe it’s the weight of the plastic compiled into my pack. My bag is heavy and it’s hurting my shoulders. I’m resting under some of the only trees I’ll see in the basin. I know exactly where they are because I’ve been here before. I want to hike but I don’t. I’m tired and feel meh and want to enjoy myself but am not sure I can. It’s tough out here.

I wonder when I’ll start seeing SOBOs. I haven’t seen many people at all recently. That’s actually really nice. But, I am looking forward to SOBOs as a sort of sign that the trail is progressing.

I left the shade around 2:15 and the rest of the day went pretty efficiently. The road (asphalt) walking for about 6.5 miles really sucked, but the rest was ok. I saw some Pronghorn bounding off at the sight of me. They’re so fast! So, that’s always fun. I also had beans for dinner which was excellent. Like really good. So much fiber which is what I need for my gut! I also saw a dead cow. And I also saw a dead Pronghorn whose ankles had gotten caught and twisted between the top two levels of barbed wire in a fence. The Antelope was clearly trying to jump the fence and had failed. Its back legs caught, the Pronghorn struggled until its death. Its entire gut had been eaten out, but its face and hind legs had drying out skin on them. I thought about taking the horns. I didn’t try. I’m not sure how I could have removed them anyways, not even to consider the sanitation of the horns or their removal. I just really want to gift William horns or antlers of some kind.

The true highlight of the day was the Horses as the first water source. They were a little family! A Stallion, small in stature, a thick and heavy Mare (clearly nursing) and a Foal. The horses shared their water with me. The Foal was playful and curious. They didn’t like the crackling of my water bottle as I filtered, however, and eventually drew back.

Post Note

Yeah I probably had Giardia. I never checked. It would have taken so much energy to find a doctor, go to the doctor, stay in town an extra day or so to go to the doctor. Ugh. None of that is worth it. I’d rather have cramps on trail. The cramps would hit me at odd intervals. Sometimes I’d literally be walking hunched over while holding my gut. I did a lot of that on this trail… But this time it was for strictly pitiful reasons! And that was nice in a way, because the discomfort could be so overwhelming that I didn’t have mental capacity to be upset about other things. Or I could think about them, but they took on a sort of wry humor in those pained moments. I think I knew I was exactly where I needed to be.

I’m realizing now that I struck sort of a pitiful scene when I imagine from the outside. There I am; shoes swaying back and forth off the back of my bag, giant backpack full of plastic towering overhead and sort of lopsided because I packed a bunch of fruit and vegetables which are up at the top, walking while hunched over in the glaring sun, slowly moving through the sage sea of the basin. Sometimes I’d stop walking when the cramps got really bad. Just sort of stand and hold myself. But honestly that wasn’t really worth it either. If you’re not walking your just sort of wallowing in your distress. Gotta keep moving to get to the other side. The best was when I could poop. When I could move a portion of whatever was going on inside outside things felt good for a while. You should go thruhiking! You might find yourself inspecting your poop from two and half feet away while you stir it into a slurry with a flimsy and splitting piece of dry sagebrush while you make a poop soup. I don’t know! Everything is possible.

The animals are what make the CDT. Wild horses are epic. Pronghorn are epic. Cut the fences! Stop the ranching! Let the animals roam free! Horses and Pronghorn can take the heat of the basin. Cattle would die without us. So would the sheep. I often imagined what it would be like if instead of cattle ranching we just let the Buffalo repopulate. That would be awesome. Imagine your cross-country road trip being delayed while you watched a herd of Bison walk by all day. You’d be upset at your delay until you realized you’re already there. Life is more interesting when beauty is out of our control and can strike at any moment.

I remember listening to history podcasts on day 58. I was on a podcasting kick through the basin. Something I haven’t mentioned, and which was a foolish thing to have been subjecting myself to, was that I wasn’t listening to any music or podcasts for the duration of the trip. I was a “thru-listener” in the tradition of the great Forest of PCT 2021 (Hi Forest!). I couldn’t do it. Right before Steamboat Springs I remember calling Paige and being like, “It’s too hard. I need something to take my mind off all this mental hell”. She was like, “Wait. You haven’t been listening to anything????”. So in the basin I listened to lots of podcasts. It was fun! I was listening to a podcast when I came across a little boy selling ice cream and sodas from his highway side stand. I talked to him for a while. He was really sweet and was super disappointed when I didn’t have any cash to buy anything. That was right before the Pronghorn. Three hundred yards down from the ice cream kid was a dead Pronghorn.

Somehow the kid and I had started talking about Jesus. I think it was because I’d asked him how his week had been and why he was selling stuff. He was raising money in the evenings and had really enjoyed his last week at his church’s VBS (vacation Bible school). He asked me if I loved Jesus. I said yes, I did love Jesus but that Jesus and I have a really complicated relationship. I told him that most of the time I think Jesus and I are pretty mad at each other, unfortunately. He told me that wasn’t good because Jesus died to save us from our sins. Leave it to me, huh, to have a theological discussion with a twelve year old kid who just tried to sell me lemonade. I responded by telling him that I didn’t think Jesus died to save us from our sins. No one needs to die for us to have forgiveness, I told him. My dad and mom didn’t need to kill anyone to forgive me. I told him the important part about Jesus was that he apparently (at least this is what the story says) gave up all the cool stuff in heaven to come live with us. I think the dying and resurrecting stuff is whatever. He didn’t like that very much, and I could tell. That’s ok. He has just as good of an idea of what’s going on as I do. He’ll work with these ideas as a twelve year old. I just opened him up to the reality that you can love Jesus and have a complicated relationship with Jesus at the same time. That will serve him really well in life I think. At least it’ll shock him less when he gets to college and leaves his small town vibe behind and suddenly he’s an atheist because that was the only other option he was ever told about back at church in Rawlins.

How bout that forgiveness stuff though. Damn. You know, I felt so violent. I definitely understood the lie that is feeling like you need to enact violence in order to forgive. I think in a lot of the talking I’d done with L throughout the spring had that underlying theme. Like. “I can forgive you but you need to see it my way” is what unfortunately came out of my mouth when what I was wanting, should have, and was desperately needing, to say was, “I’ve already forgiven you I just need you to see and validate and care for my pain. I’m hurting so badly. I can only remember that forgiveness I already know in my Self, live into that forgiveness, when I feel like you care for me. Without that I lose control all over again. I’m so sorry. I am so bad at this. I want to be better at this”. Does that make sense? My saying “see it my way” was the expectation before the manipulative carrot which was “my forgiveness”. That’s violence. Take it from me, a human who hurts those he loves most; if there’s any connection between forgiveness and violence it’s abuse. All of us participate in that. None of us deserve that. The Jesus story, as most Christians tell it, is broken.

I left the kid and his stand a great review on Guthooks and then liked my own comment. Gotta get those socials’ moment rolling, you know? Cash only. He’s already great. So excited to serve and make the world a better place as he understands it.