My Wife, His Girlfriend
Cibbets Flat Campground to Al Bahr Shrine
It truly feels like we're hitting our stride, pun fully intended. The very first steps on the trail continue to get easier, and our pace over the entire day was steady and impressive.
As a little test today I made us implement my highly experimental 5-55 eating rule. At the top of every hour we took a 5 minute break to throw down some food + water and to pee if we needed to (in that order), then hike for the next 55 minutes. Because of the short amount of time we couldn't pig out and feel sluggish. Instead, it felt more like topping off the personal gas tanks so we could maintain a great level of consistency over the entire day.
The cooler weather continued, helping my spirits tremendously. I also received a HUGE mental boost today because Jenn came down from LA and joined us on the trail. Preliminarily we weren't sure if we were even going to be able to bring her and my mom along due to inclement weather and a perceived intense incline, but both factors proved to be all hype and no substance.
Their presence also led to one of the funnier moments of the trip so far. For about 4 miles Dad and I ended up hiking with some other thru-hikers who were from South Africa and Canada. At one point I directed them over to this breathtaking desert overlook where we proceeded to grab a quick snack break and introduce ourselves. My dad explained how we were from San Diego, this was our third day on the trail, and that we actually weren't hiking alone today. "Yeah, we're actually about to meet up with my wife, his girlfriend a little ways up the trail."
As he said it we all heard how wrong that sounded, so I felt obligated to quickly jump in and offer the explanation, "They're not the same person!" That hilarious little slip had us laughing at ourselves for the rest of the day. You've gotta be able to laugh at yourself out on the trail and out in life. You're never going to be perfect (and thank god, because how boring and predictable would life be then!), so you've gotta just take a step back and laugh it all off. It's like my freshman roommate Nick Anderson told me, "Don't take life too seriously, nobody gets out alive anyways."
