Day 60

I slept great last night! It rained all night and I didn’t hear a sound other than the rain on the tent. I woke up and ate breakfast in the tent because it was still raining. I packed everything up while I was still in the tent waiting for the rain to stop. It finally did and I took my time putting everything up. I didn’t want to start the day off stressed out so I put some music on and took my time.

It was 11 am when I finally started walking. The fog was starting to go away and there was a hint of sunlight peeking through the clouds. I headed on and was feeling great. I was proud of myself for not getting upset that I had a wet tent and some wet tarps. My plan was to hang them up whenever I stopped and let the sun dry them out. Halfway through the day that worked and I didn’t have to worry about that anymore.

It started to get pretty hot. A guy pulled over and gave us water and some other snacks. I was thankful for the water. Today was hot and muggy and I needed the extra hydration. So did domino. I could see a mountain range ahead and really didn’t feel like dealing with that but I had no choice. I enjoyed the flat roads as long as I could.

Right before I got to my first big hill, I was stopped by a nice woman who saw me passing by. I had Crocodile Rock playing loud on the radio and my straw hat was on and I know I looked crazy. She asked if I needed anything and I asked for water. I got topped off and we talked about the walk and she had been affected by a loss of a friend to an overdose also. She warned me about the hills and the white trash neighborhood up ahead. I told her I went through West Virginia I can go through anything haha.

After her house it was up and down from there. Huge hills in southern Indiana. Who would’ve known!? I was on back roads with hardly any traffic. The scenery was great. I was jamming to a radio station that was playing hits from 1982. Life was good. Hours and miles later, I came upon a church. Thank God lol. I was out of water and me and Domino were both overheated. No one was there but I filled up my water bottles from the garden hose spigot and took a break. I thought about camping there because I’d gone pretty far already and it didn’t look like much was ahead on my map.

I kept going anyways. I still had about 2 hours left of daylight, might as well get another 5 or 6 miles in. Big mistake. There was nothing after that church. All farms that I can’t camp on and every house was 8000 miles off of the road and I didn’t want to walk all the way to the door and get rejected. I kept going and going.

Storms were beginning to approach. The radio was saying that it was going to rain really hard tonight and I wanted to just put my damn tent up and be done with the day. I finally found a shitty little half way cleared out spot right on the side of the road. I can totally be seen by people driving by but I didn’t care. The rain was coming fast. Wind and thunder already had started.

I went to stomp the ground to try to get a flat spot and realized that I was stepping on a deer spine and not a stick. Freaked out and then moved to another spot. Not very flat but no bones. I threw the tent up frantically and threw what I needed inside and then wrapped Lieutenant Dan in a tarp and hopped in right in time for the rain. Domino thanked me.

I went 20 miles today. More than I wanted to but that’s ok. I’ll probably get a room in the town that’s about 7 miles ahead and do an easy day tomorrow. After that town, I will be in the middle of nowhere for at least 5 days and I want to be prepared for it.

Now to eat ramen noodles and sleep on this lumpy floor during a thunderstorm…