Wednesday, April 17, 2013 – 21.1 km

I woke up this morning to a cloudy sky that lent the landscape a pleasant gloominess and created distinct sunbeams when the sun rose. For most of the day I was expecting rain, but none came.

I decided to try hiking with my glasses, which I picked out many years ago after a Driver’s Ed vision test concluded that I was a menace on the road. I’ve only worn them on a few occasions, once when I got an eye infection and couldn’t wear my contact lenses, once when I was looking for a place to sleep in my car and had already taken out my contacts in a public restroom. On the second occasion I backed into a ditch (am I really a menace…?). I’m tired though of the lengthy ‘wash hands/air dry/hand sanitizer/air dry/put in contacts and hope for eye infection not to materialize’ process; also I need to change the contacts more often than usual and they’re dropping like flies. Glasses are like hiking with an umbrella – it sucks, but sometimes it’s better than the boiling sun.

I passed the ruins of Reavis Ranch.

I was going to camp there if it had creepy old buildings (what’s the attraction?) but without the allure of creepy old buildings, I had arrived too early for camping. Instead I decided to stop at Pine Spring, which was lovely and watery with established camping spots. While snacking there I heard a buzz like a mini-engine and what I thought was a huge bug flew overhead with a spray of liquid. It’s not enough to be creepy, now you have to launch gunk at me too? But later I heard the sound again and identified its source as a hummingbird. What was the liquid? Nectar?