Day 94

Worst. Day. Ever.

Not really… I guess. It was one of the hard ones though. I learned a lot though.

I left Pilot Grove around 8 am and got back on the trail for about a mile. I came to a small backroad that I planned to take instead of staying on the Katy Trail. It was a more direct shot to Kansas City, which is my next major destination.

I was happy at first. Feeling great about the change of scenery. And then the sun came up. By 10 am life was hell on earth. At my first breaking point, I was sitting under some shade off the side of the road, a truck pulls up to see what was going on. Harold and his son Will. Nice guys just checking on me. We talked for a while and Harold donated some money. It was a great time for good people to come by because I was in a bad place. I was so far from anything and had no choice but to push through the heat.

I went up and down huge hills. What the fuck Missouri!? You’re in the middle of the country, you’re supposed to be flat! Ugh. It was miserable. I ran into a work zone and the guys were questioning whether or not to let me through. Before I said, “I don’t care what you say, I’m going through” they let me go. Thank goodness. They were nice actually. Just trying to do their jobs. Blah.

It was way too hot. I started to question sending domino home or not. It may  be too much for her. I also decided that I am no longer going to walk between the hours of 12 and 6 pm. Just can’t be done. I’ll do more night walking now. Fuck it.

I was strolling along in absolute misery and I came to a road closed sign. I didn’t think twice. I just went around it and kept going. I figured I would deal with whatever obstruction I came to when I got there. There was no way I was turning back around.

I came upon a bridge that 4 guys were working on. They were cool about it. They didn’t want me to cross over the concrete they just poured so they helped me lift Lieutenant Dan around the section of fresh concrete. Shortly after that I found a shady spot and laid right in the middle of the road for about an hour. Road was closed so I figured it was safe. It was…

More hills and more heat. I only had about 5 miles to go but it seemed like I’d never make it. I had to stop every 20 or 30 minutes just to cool down. I finally got to my destination. It is a stop off of the interstate with a porn shop, a gas station, and a truck repair shop. That’s it. The gas station had a dairy queen. That’s what kept me going all day.

I went to the porn store first, just because I thought it would make a great story, to ask if I could set my tent up behind their building. Nope. Went to the gas station and ordered food. I waited for the customers to clear out of the gas station side and I asked the clerk and he said that it would be fine and told me where to do it. Now I could relax. I ate some food and some ice cream and came back out to give Domino a plain hamburger.

Went to set the tent up in the shade. It’s 6:15 now and I’m going to try to go to sleep and wake up extra early to get some miles in before it gets hot. Tomorrow it’s supposed to reach 100 and I’m not having that. I’m going to be sleeping somewhere in the shade.

Hope that I can figure this out. There’s no way I can go on with days like this…