Sassafras will kick your...

HOLY MOTHER! Sassafras and Justice mountains were a killer! My feet are really reeking havoc for me...it is really hard to appreciate the beauty or anything else around me when every step is excruciating. I'm having to stop often to make adjustments with my feet. Then feet aside, I know I'm out of shape, overweight and slowly making way into hiking fitness - which means VERY slow days. I'm okay with that, I would rather take it slow and not hurt myself. I would guess I'm hiking around 1.5 miles an hour. I get there, it just takes me longer. I passed a section hiker that had said that to me. She was out with her husband (who was well passed her) and we talked briefly, the first day maybe. She was offering me advice on my thru hike. She said even if it is slow going at first, that's okay. She told me about how her and her husband hike at different speeds completely, but they meet for lunch usually and then at the end of the day. Again, Bluto came as my afternoon energizer and pushed me to keep going. I finally took the insoles out of my boots which I think was causing the blisters on the sides of the heels and that brought my foot low enough in the boot to fix the back of the heel blisters too...I seriously have blisters on blisters. All day long it is constant small adjustments. I need to make it to Neels Gap to the outfitter and they have a great team there that works magic on injured feet. It's unfortunate because it really is almost all I can think about right now...stupid feet!

My only regret of the day was that while going up Sassafras mountain, I really wanted to take pictures. It was really beautiful and when I pulled my camera out to snap a few shots, the battery was dead. It was pretty cold today so that might have been it, or it was dead. But either way, I hadn't pulled a spare battery out and putting my pack down and rifling through my clothing bag (thats were I put the spare batteries to protect them) wasn't worth it. I knew that in hind sight I will have wished I'd done it. Oh well, there will be more mountains! It turned out that yeah, the battery was just cold and after a bit of it being in an inside pocket it warmed up and was fine.