Status Report

I went to bed early last night, though I'm not sure I got to sleep any earlier. For at least an hour, every time I closed my eyes, scenes from the path replayed and mutated themselves. At one point, I was mentally going through a circuit of "towns" that my subconscious had invented on the route, one of which made it to a dream at some point (not very interesting; racist general store, house, birds in back yard, water spilling). When those circling images finally died down, I think I drifted into sleep.

My feet are sore (no new blisters, however; I love my moccasins). My right hip flexor is sore. My calves...are complaining slightly, but not sore really. Quads? Just peachy. Because of taiji, my quads can take a LOT. My quads do complain slightly on stairs at the moment, but compared to a taiji workshop, yesterday was a cakewalk for them.

After thinking about it, I think 12 miles is the extreme low end of the estimate. Gibson Jack itself is 8.5 miles. I walked two hours out of my way, and got a ride for maybe half of the way back. When I'm hurrying, I generally walk 4 miles per hour. I was not hurrying, however. So make it 2 or 3 miles per hour. That makes the total off-the-track distance 4-6 miles, add half of that back in for 6-8 miles total off track... Probably 14.5-16.5 miles. If I actually made 4 miles per hour, it could be as high as 20.5 miles. I'll call it 15 miles until I look up the distance to that road I came across.

Anyway, the guys who told me I was definitely on the wrong trail were up there to pick up guideposts from the snowmobile/ATV trail. The guideposts are bright orange, to be easily visible against snow in the winter. There were three of them, with two ATV's and one trailer. I rode with the youngest one in the trailer for part of the way back. He was probably 30-40. Heavyset. Dark mustache and matching curlyish hair. The drivers were some indeterminate age over 50. They seem like the type of guys who would look about the same from 50-80, barring major accidents. Grey beards and long grey hair. One had a Harley Davidson leather jacket. Unlike two other ATV's I came across on the trail, these did NOT smell horribly of exhaust. Presumably the engines were newer and more efficient. Beyond that these guys worked for some group connected with trail maintenance, I have no clue who they were, but I figure I'll send out a big Thank You, whether they're likely to see it or not. (Nice guys; kept asking if I had enough water with me. I almost did.)