Day 16 - A Four Advil Morning

You can guess from the title that I was achy breaky this morning when I awoke at 4:00. I started with two pills but closer to 5:00 I added two more. By the time I walked out of camp I was moving without too much trouble. 

Unfortunately I didn't hit the trail till after 6 and there was only 45 minutes before the sun peered over the mountains. 

Still it makes for nice light...

I did pretty well for the first part of the day but as the morning turned to afternoon and the sun, aka Public Enemy Number One (ask Angela) began to beat down on me my enery flagged and my pace, which is never fast, ground to a slow crawl. It wasn't as hot as it could be at 85 in the shade, but for a coastal gal like myself it was too dang hot for words. 

In fact it took me 12 hours to hike 16.5 miles. That included many breaks but still I'm gonna have to do better than that if I expect to keep hiking with these two hiking fiends. We have another 16 mile day tomorrow and another 16 the next day. Hope I can manage it. 

One more thing. This afternoon as it was cooling off I surprised myself and a rattlesnake. He/she rattled very loudly and I jumped very highly. Quite polite of the snake I'd say. Anyway it was a big thing with rattles for days. My first snake of the season.