Bluto headed back to Standing Bear with Nosence. Nosence is going to California to hang with friends and Bluto has swine flu. Not really swine fever, but he is sick and hacking up a lung and thinking of meeting us in Damascus for Trail Days. He had a hard day yesterday and woke this morning feeling horrible. I almost got him to push on by brow beating, but he is truly sick I think, otherwise my wily female charms might have worked! :)
Today was the hardest and messiest day so far! It was really crazy. I was sweating bullets early in the day and planned on stopping to take off my base layer pants (under my rain pants) and also change into my short sleeve shirt instead of the long sleeve shirt I was wearing. It started raining (this is now expected every day) so I put my pack cover on and enjoy it, as I was really hot and the rain was cold and felt great.
To the left of us (CFC was all walking together), a visible gray sheet of rain was rushing toward us literally like a wall of wetness sounding like a waterfall (it made us paranoid later when we heard moving water around a corner that we might get the wall of rain again). It poured on us, very very COLD rain. This at first was okay because we were working up such a sweat, and almost welcomed. However, it didn't stop after 5 minutes like usual, and like I said, it was really cold rain. It continued, and got worse. Nothai took off ahead of us when Screefreak, Chef and I slowed to adjust clothes. Eventually I got separated too when I stopped for a couple of minutes too. I was trying to ascend Max Patch (which I hear is supposed to be beautiful balds resembling Scotland), and the angry wind is pelting my face so hard with stinging icy raindrops, I can barely look up and keep my head down against it. I'm seriously thinking about hypothermia and pushing myself because I know if I stop that could be really bad! I'm shivering and getting pretty cold. Now, when I say that I'm soaked - I'm being literal about this. If I had jumped into a pool and gotten out that is how wet I was. My feet were just sopping. The though of lightening enters my mind as I hear thunder and realize that I'm in a BAD position if it starts. There really isn't anywhere for me to run, if I could run...but I'm doubting that I could do that with my squishy feet. Thankfully no lightening, and in fact, everything abruptly stopped right before leaving the area enough for me to pull out the camera and get in a few foggy pictures.
I'm having thoughts of not finishing today, not quitting, but not thru hiking everything the 'right way'. This could be low blood sugar talking. It could be that I'm in a bad mood too. I'll think more about what I mean tomorrow.
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