Bringin Da Funk (Day 7)
Day 7 is complete and it was a long one. Just over 19 miles in the sun, much of the walk in exposed fields. There were some damn hills in there too. The climbs weren’t too bad (I’m lying) but the descents were really rough (not lying). The rocks were loose and zig zagging was the way to go. The issue with that is you seem to walk twice as far to cover the same distances. I don’t want to walk further. I’m walking enough. That was my thinking when I decided to go straight down the middle of one of the descents. I lost my footing and slid no less than 50 feet down the track. Somehow I didn’t fall and I like to think it looked cool. Well, as cool as it can look when wearing my floppy hat (see previous post), smacking my poles into the ground and yelling, “oh shit, oh shit, oh shit” as I went. Still, I’ll bet it looked pretty cool.
I’m not sure where Garmin pulls the temperature but if it was 50 degrees I’m tall, thin and Swedish
That descent towards the middle there is where I did my Lindsay Vaughn impression
Because it was such a long walk today everyone left early and all the pilgrims were grouped together for much of the morning and into the first village. We looked like an invading army if an invading army wore silly, multicolored floppy hats and reeked of Tiger Balm. Our battle cry would be “oh my hip” or “uno croissant por favor”, both equally terrifying. While this pilgrim army might not be able to sack a city we can overrun the shit out of a coffee shop. Trust me, I’ve seen the fear in the baristas eyes when we descend. We haunt their dreams.
The hord wandering towards town
The latter part of the walk was through wine country and quite a few vineyards. They were beautiful but there was little to no shade so it began to heat it quickly.
Grapes (duh)
As we wandered I began to notice a smell. I soon realized that it was I who was bringing the funk, and not George Clinton style but Pepe LePew style. I had forgot to wash floppy hat and his aroma was kicking. I looked around and realized that we were all in a similar state so I just rolled with it. It was a different story when I came into the hotel though. It’s kind of a nice place and I was given a wide berth by everyone when I came in the lobby. I’ve never been checked in and shown to a room as quickly in my life. I guess that’s the benefit of smelling like a high school locker room. Possibly the only benefit. The hat is soaking now and I hope to not repeat this mistake.
Mike behaved himself and my bandaging job seemed to hold up for the most part. I’ve posted some trail marker pictures and some interesting signs I read along the way.
Sometimes you gotta look pretty close for the markers
