Read Part II

My sleep didn’t last long. My sleeping bag wasn’t heavy enough and I woke up shivering. I could see by the luminescent hands on my watch that it was only around 10 o’clock. The river was still roaring. I felt like I was laying on a plank. This is most likely because I was. I couldn’t get comfortable. Every time I fell asleep, something woke me up. I rolled to my side, my back, my stomach. Every time that I woke and looked at my watch, I hoped to see that I had been asleep for hours and it was almost morning. Each time, I was disappointed when I found that only a few minutes had passed. It was a long night. I wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping either. Dirka was restless. He had walked pretty well, but now that we were done walking he did not know what to do with himself. He paced and whined. Yes whined… he makes this high pitched little noise when he is anxious. I don’t think Dirka slept much, which means my brother didn’t get much sleep either. I woke up, sore and exhausted. My back ached from sleeping in the shelter, my knees and feet ached from the 11 miles the day before. We started to pack up our stuff after our morning snack. I put new dry socks on and put my feet in my boots which were still pretty wet. What a great feeling.

Dirka was very ready to go. He kept straining against his leash. Eventually the rest of us were packed and ready to go. We said goodbye to Notes and wished him luck on his thru-hike. And then we were on the trail again. I was too tired, I was slogging before we had walked a mile. But I was happy. And it wasn’t raining. We started up a pretty steep climb. Dad and I slowed right down, but Dirka was still straining to get ahead. Finally my brother couldn’t take it anymore, he decided to let the dog wear himself out. He was going to walk at Dirka’s pace for a while. I tried to keep up with them, but I couldn’t do it. I was just too beat. Dad and I continued on at our pace. We finally got to the top. We expected to find my brother and the dog there, but instead we found a troop of Boy Scouts there. We chatted with them, one of the boys showed us where there was a Copperhead. We climbed up the Pinnacle Rocks and enjoyed the view. It was starting to get warm and humid, but the breeze up there was nice and the view was fantastic.

After a short rest we moved on. The trail ran along a ridgeline for most of our for this trip. We figured it would be pretty easy walking. We were wrong. There were rocky outcrops all along the ridge and the trail instead of going around them went right over and through them. As we walked and my legs got more tired I kept kicking the tips of rocks accidentally. Each time I did it, pain shot through my toes straight to my brain. After a while we came to a road crossing. There we found my Dirka the Dog along with my brother. My brother looked whipped, but Dirka was still straining at his leash. We stopped and had lunch there. We met a lady who waiting for here husband. He was running the entire trail. He ran like thirty or forty miles every day. She said he was going to take a break soon, so he could go run in a one hundred mile/24 hour race. We smiled and nodded. 100 miles in 24 hours! Some break.

We got back on the trail. Before long Dirka the Dog had dragged my brother ahead of us. Dad and I trudged along, climbing over rocks, and me doing my best not to kick them. I kicked a lot of rocks that day. The day wore on and my feet were killing me. I was no longer enjoying myself, I only wanted to get to the end. Eventually we did. Dirka was there waiting for us, so was my brother. I was dead tired, but by the time I got home, peeled my boots off and took a shower I knew I would be doing it again soon.

And I have… many times. And most of those times its rained — at least a little bit. It doesn’t bother me. I know I will never get rained on like that first time. I expect it to rain when I backpack. It is my destiny. I am the Rain King!