CDT Day 86 (8/12/23)

Miles 2093.15 (Red line 2355.9)- 2100.35 (Red line 2363.1) (7.2 miles)

Verbatim

I’m here in Darby. Hurray! A local picked me up from the pass and brought me into town. He totally misled me as to the right restaurant to eat breakfast at. Haha. So, at the first restaurant I grabbed a quick cinnamon roll and ice cream cone and got myself up to go to the Montana Cafe. I want my monkey bread. :)

The cinnamon roll was good though. And the ice cream gave me something to eat while I walked over to the cafe (SEE! Walk while you eat!). The lady asked if I wanted the ice cream in a plastic cup. I said, “no, a cone would be better”. I’m obviously trying to avoid plastic so I don’t have to carry it. But certainly that waffle cone came packaged in plastic as well. Because I don’t “use” it I don’t have to carry it. lol

The monkey bread and omelet was so. good. Worth all of last night’s expectation and hype. I will eat at the Montana cafe again one day… I promise. I ate with a young man named Kelly a the bar. He’s trying to go pro on the rodeo and was in town for last night’s show. He said you can work out all you want, but only get in “riding shape” from doing the actual thing. He said the fastest lassoers catch in about seven seconds. Crazy.

I hug out in the library from 10:30 to 2 after breakfast. I charged, watched YouTube, and talked to William about Priory of the Orange Tree and to Paige about her work and my life. Those were great conversations although I didn’t have as much energy as I would have wished for my call with Paige. It was good to catch up though. The last I talked to her was in Yellowstone. That’s more than two weeks ago now. I think I should call my grama next.

At 4 ET arrived. We grocery shopped and got dinner. What an intelligent, thoughtful, and balanced individual. Certainly able to get excited. And I think that’s cool. He brought me back up to the pass, which was very kind. I’ll look forward to seeing him in Maine for the AT.

In my short walk out of town this evening I saw three Black Bears! Two adolescent and one adult. The first held a stare for ten seconds before jogging off. The second, the adult, was far down the path and ambled off before I could get close. The third ran off as soon as it saw me. None compared to the Bear I spent time with three days ago(?) now. But it’s cool to see animal density. With the SOBO’s through I think the animals will utilize the trail more confidently. Like NM.

I just saw a Nighthawk flit right above my head. :) They sound like Frogs when the pull out of their dives.

Post Note

Nighthawks are super cool. They eat insects which come to flight during the dusk and night hours. They flit and flutter about with short wingstrokes before diving rapidly to catch an unsuspecting bug below them. They’re really incredible hunters. When they pull out from their dive, sometimes harrowingly close to the ground, the air whooshes through their wings and creates a sort of “WRRrrr” sound. It’s not the sort of sound you’d expect from a dainty and agile bird. Look it up! The first time I remember being puzzled by the sound was when I was camped in the Great Basin by a marshy spring area. I was convinced it was some desert Toad. Nope. It was the birds I could faintly see arching and diving over my head eating all the mosquitoes I hated so much. Chuck and Loraine, when I zero’d in Ennis, pointed it out to me from their back porch. We watched the Nighthawks play before the grand sunset scenery of the Gravelies. I love you Nighthawk.

The plastic I was carrying was adding up. And I had been avoiding using undue plastic because of that. Which wasn’t the goal. The original intention was to use plastic completely normally to gauge the “true cost” of what it would mean to have to carry all the plastic I used. It would have been a better, more “plastic-y”, story if I had said yes to all the plastic. To the someone who is reading this and feels inspired; go do it! You’ll write a better book than this blog. And the world needs that book! But yeah, I was avoiding things like the plastic bottle from the standard quart of chocolate milk I’d buy when entering a town and spotting a grocery store. I didn’t buy choco milk once! My trip went through, I don’t know, twenty-five towns? Imagine if I walked with twenty-five quart bottles clanking on my back… That was the original intention.

But even when I was avoiding plastic use I realized there was a level of plastic use I couldn’t even access for its carrying. Yes, I ate a waffle cone instead of a plastic cup. Good job! But that waffle cone, in its fragility, would definitely have been packaged in some supportive and impact absorbing plastic container when it was shipped to the restaurant. And that box of waffles was definitely taped with plastic tape. And it was probably shipped while wrapped to other boxes of waffle cones in clear cellophane wrap. And a host of other things too! Even to the most minute detail; like the styrofoam cup the truck driver, who dropped off the food shipment of which the waffle cone in its packaging was a part, was drinking his morning coffee out of. And how was that coffee packaged? And on and on it goes. How do I carry all that?

And how do I explain my carrying plastic to a guy like Kelly? He’s twenty-two, got big dreams to go pro, and is desperately eyeing my breakfast while he waits for his own because he too knows the hunger of an active body. How do I tell a Montana rancher, so steeped in the beautiful culture, that the economic activity his lifestyle romances and is based on is toxic for the very principles of beauty and American freedom he loves? How do I teach him that the Coyote and Wolf are his friends? I couldn’t figure out an answer to any of these questions as I stuffed my face full of peanut butter bread with wide eyes as he narrated in a real “man’s voice” about the exploits of a plains rancher. But listening to him did make me want to get a dog. Cattle dogs are so cool.