Friday, April 05, 2019

Hiker bedtime is 9:00 PM, but I kept seeing the moment when Steve flipped and couldn’t get to sleep until past 12:00 AM. I decided to write neglected emails – that’s testimony to my state of mind, since normally those should have sat for AT LEAST two more weeks before being forgotten for another eight months.

In the morning I was tired and still a mess. I kept thinking about the fall and started crying whenever I did. I checked out of the hotel, moved to the campground and cried inside one of the private bathrooms. I wanted to curl up in my tent afterwards, but today is Friday so I had to deal with my bounce box before the post office closed for the weekend.

On my way out of the campground, I met Bake with a new group of twenty-somethings. He asked how I was doing and I told him and one of his companions about yesterday, which inevitably involved more crying. I had of course discussed the fall with Tamara and Alba and Jordie, but I think it helped to put the entire event into words, because I started feeling more stable afterwards and in the afternoon was finally able to think about it without crying. That was a relief since my nose was starting to get sore, like how it does when you have a cold and your nose runs constantly.

The afternoon was spent on resupply, getting my bounce box mailed to Big Bear Lake, and laundry.

When I returned to the campground, Bake and his group had made a campfire and I hung out with them for awhile. It’s a fun group with some interesting people, including a guy who worked on a nuclear submarine and a woman with the fabulous trail name Dropbear. They had chosen to stay in a site with electricity rather than the hiker/biker site and had crammed something like ten tents in there.