Turtles

Well folks, Sunday we made it 14.2 miles!! I know this doesns sound like much, but trust me, it really is :) it was a fairly difficult day with lots ups and downs. It was one of my (Zae) better days because my feet hardly hurt at all!! My blisters are finally beginning to heal and Iv had a lot less pain in them in general! However it was a harder day for Shazz because his heel started hurting him. He was a great sport about it though and even towards the end of the day when he was really tired he was making up songs as we hiked along. In case any of you would care to hear the lyrics to his lovely song, i have included them at the bottom of this post. Even though he was hurting and we were both tired we were glad we were able to push through considering we're running low on food and two full days of hiking from town. Don't worry, we have figured out that if we eat trail mix for breakfast and lunch we should have enough supper foods to get us through :) Monday we were considering taking a zero day since it was calling for rain. After checking the weather we decided to try to get in at least a few miles since it wasn't supposed to start raining until 10am. We packed up and headed out by 8 and hiked till about 1:45. And let me tell you it was a tough hike for the first little while. I didn't know that such steep mountains existed. And I have no idea why there would need to be one right after another! For the first 8 miles we only experienced a mild drizzle, but shewy those last two miles it started coming down! We were headed for a shelter and were hoping to find it empty. Boy were we in for a surprise, we arrived only to find the very tiny shelter full of about 15 other people with not much room left. So we stood there, and shivered, and stood there some more, etc...we were hoping there would be a break in the rain so we could put up our tent. (seeing how all available sitting down or laying down spots were taken) After standing there for about 45 minutes we finally decided to just set up in the rain, which had slowed slightly. I have to say I hope we never have to do that again! Around 4 we were finally in our tent attempting to sop up the puddles that had formed as we were bringing in our wet backpacks and selves. Around 4:30 we were at last inside our sleeping bags, staring at our wet clothes strung all around our tent, hoping that we would not become icicles that night.

-Zae

Shazz's song! ( actually it was kind of like a chant)

Ahead is a mountain and I want to cuss it out,

But I'm not going to because God created it.

And it is beautiful and it has a nice view,

Especially when you're at the top!

"Am I not turtly enough for the turtle club"? (Master of Disguise)