I woke late. I'd had a case of the spins the night before (vertigo, not drunkenness) and hadn't slept well. My back was in spasm and getting up out of bed was shockingly painful.

I got my daily supplies together: laptop, toiletries, phone, towel, miscellaneous. I ate a late breakfast of who-knows-what and schlepped my stuff to the cafe. Internet. Email. Blog. Then it was time to move my body. On the way to my cabin, I just felt weary, there is no other word for it. I began to think of how much I'd done in the last week, like the Lead Butt trip, and decided that my body was telling me I was in need of rest and that I shouldn't hike like I'd planned.

I puttered in my cabin. Then I just went to the car and got my backpack and loaded it with all the things I would need if I hiked far enough to make it to the lake in the park. All of a sudden, I was shouldering my pack and heading out. I was hiking.

I walked up the hill, my hiking poles clacking against the new chip-sealed road. Small steps. No schedule.

I listened to the podcast I had downloaded, called A Quiet Mind. The voice of the Buddhist man was soothing as he talked about today's topic, forgiveness. I thought about being here, now. I decided I needed to quit planning in my head while I walked, and I recited sentences with present-tense verbs in them: I am walking. I am doing what I planned to do. I am listening to the podcast of the man with the soothing voice. I am walking. I am happy. I feel like I will cry. It's okay if I cry. I am exhilarated right now. I love the green grass and the blue sky and the breeze.

I walked carefully because I had my headphones in my ears. Some dogs came at me from behind a fence, and I wasn't sure if they could get out of their yard or not, and I instinctively backed away. I almost got hit by a car driven by an older man. He didn't look happy, and I yelled at him, "I'm sorry! There are dogs!" and turned back to put my hand out toward the dogs. I worried for a mile or so about how the man had been angry with me, but I was able to let it go. It wasn't about me, ultimately.

I saw this lovely clematis near Olga. I love clematis.




I stopped in Olga proper to deposit my mail (just made it with 22 minutes to spare: the PO closes at 2:15pm) and see what goodies were in my PO box. Yay! A postcard from Cristopher and his wife Meredith. I sat under the big tree in front of the PO and ate some dried blueberries, Doe Bay granola, and a couple of McVities chocolate-covered digestive biscuits.

After twenty minutes of resting, perhaps less, I was back on my feet and heading due north toward Moran State Park. The hiking poles made life so much easier. I think by this time I was listening to This American Life as Dan Savage told the story of his six-year-old son's objection to Dan marrying his boyfriend. I passed a stream in a ravine. I passed the Rainwater Farm. I came to the one-lane bridge and turned uphill, north, entering the Park and pointing my feet toward Cascade Falls.

The falls were pretty interesting, but there was a group of boys in what looked like a summer-camp group, and I was very aware that I was fat, sweaty, and wearing just a bikini top and shorts. I'm not sure if I didn't want to make them uncomfortable, or if I was uncomfortable about them disapproving or finding my body unappealing. Either way, it was bullshit thinking. Either way, it was best to just keep hiking upward.

A pool above the falls, just a small brook in a small moment:




And I came to a bridge and a small waterfall:




The trail kept going uphill. Up, and more up. I saw many clearings filled with more foxglove (digitalis) than I had ever seen in one place before:




Shortly after that picture was taken, I startled a bird. As it lifted off, a mere twenty feet from me, I saw that it was a juvenile eagle. I am aware that eagles are very large birds, but being that close to one as it rose into the air, I had a newfound respect and awe. That bird could easily have had me for lunch, should it have been so inclined. But I was awestruck, and may have simply offered myself to it in that state.

I stopped at one point to tie my shoe or stretch my calves, and put my foot on the sawn end of a tree trunk. Then I noticed these beautiful fungi:




I spent some time in a valley, where the trail made little elevation gain. Many more forests of foxglove appeared. I was just overwhelmed by the color and the linearity and the crunch of them all over. Then I turned a corner, walked a few hundred yards, saw blue sky ahead, and I knew I'd made it: I was at the dam.




I think it's a pretty dam, with an accessible design and thought to both function and form. You can climb around on it, and many people go there to fish. The lake is flush with the top of the dam, so it seems to be just ready to spill over. It's a weird sight to be at eye level with a mile-long mountain lake.

I hiked counter-clockwise around Mountain Lake, looking for a place to maybe swim. I had packed my floaty and my swim towel, in case the day was hot and I was inclined to take a dip. As it turns out, I wasn't inclined; the wind had risen to about 5-7 knots, and the sky was somewhat overcast. I walked about a quarter mile up the lake, and sat for a bit with my boots off. I ate and drank a little, just watching the lake, the wind, and the sky.








Back up the lake to the main trail. On my iPod, Michael Feldman was entertaining Iowans on Whaddya Know. I turned left at the Y and headed toward Mt. Pickett and the boundary trail.

I had a map, and it was mostly helpful, but I almost made one wrong turn. The orientation of the Mt. Pickett road and the main trail were somewhat different on the ground than as depicted on the map, but I used my wood sense to correct course within a minute of following the road the way the map said I should. In fact, I was fairly proud of my navigation skills and deductive reasoning.

The final section of Park was that between Mountain Lake and the southern Boundary Trail. I knew if I walked the Boundary Trail, I would eventually come to a turn-off that I had taken on a previous trip from Doe Bay to Mt. Pickett. I recalled clearly the cairn of branches (if cairn can be applied to non-rock items) that marked the trail. There was a lot of ground to cover between the lake and the turn-off, during which I lost much of the elevation I'd gained between the stone bridge and the lake. I was grateful for my hiking poles, as my knees began mildly protesting after walking for over 5 hours.

I found the turn-off easy as pie, and down I went to Winter Falls Road. A short walk and I was on Pickett's Lane, then on Pt. Lawrence Road, and then back at Doe Bay.

I think I must have walked between ten and twelve miles. The chicken risotto I made when I got back was delicious. So were Tessa's mom's cookies. I didn't take the wine they offered, though, because after a long day of sweating and probably under-hydrating, wine wouldn't have been my friend.

So here it is, after 11pm, and I'm finally ready to shut off my brain and my computer, walk to my cabin, and surrender to what I believe will be one of the better nights of sleep I've had in quite some time.

Tomorrow we float the lake, but I'm driving up.