Day Nineteen, Looking Up

I walked I guess twenty miles today. I could have easily gone two or three more. But it started to rain in cold fat drops just as I was passing a pretty good campsite. Find me now five or six miles outside of Davenport, Washington on a grassy hill overlooking the highway. The rancher whose land I am guessing this is can see me from his kitchen window, half a mile away. I'm hoping he'll understand.

I slept long and awfully well last night, although it was fearfully cold. I put on my thermals and Himalayan hat and zippered in right to the top. I have got a lot of laundry which makes a nice pillow and it doesn't stink so very much yet. Usually I toss and turn quite a bit but I had some very soft ground. I could sleep on my side, a rare luxury, and stayed out for nearly nine hours. What dreams I had were in Japanese, a peculiar language to dream in.

It took me a good two hours to hike to Creston, a very friendly little town. People have seemed colder since I crossed the river and I was afraid that was all I had to look forward to. Over breakfast I listened to a farmer discussing business with his chemical supply agent. It was very interesting. She wanted to know what he was growing in what rotation and how far apart his plants were and what sort of equipment he was using and why and when he applied this concoction or that and in what measure and so on. I didn't understand half of it. I hope I get a chance to talk to a farmer before this trip is over. It is as much art as it is science and I have hundreds of questions.

I got a turkey sandwich to go to have for my dinner but I am afraid it wound up as my lunch. Turkey and tomato and onions on dark rye bread. Gosh, it was good. Could have been bigger and it did little to warm be as I was at a rather bleak little rest area just getting pummelled by twenty-some mile an hour winds. The warming sun disappeared behind clouds and there was lightning to the south. I had fantasised about washing my hair there but instead I spent three hours resting my feet and shivering.

Shivering can be a little scary out here. When I stop walking my body temperature drops a couple of degrees almost instantly and if I drink some cold water it drops a couple more. There was no place really out of the wind and if I hadn't thought to put on my raincoat I would have gone all hypothermic. There was a fellow there resting in his Volvo and I thought about asking if I could sit in there with him but I guessed that would be sort of creepy. So he sat there watching me suffering, playing his radio too loud.

Sometime today, just out of Creston, I think, I left the farmland behind. I turned the corner and went down a small hill and suddenly there they were... trees! Rather sorry looking little trees, some kind of pine, stunted and thinnish and scrubby. Individually they almost make the landscape seem drier but in their numbers they are a welcome sight. I am in now, I guess, ranch country. All kinds of fences here. The land is covered with grasses and sage and is very rough with rocks and little valleys. There are all sorts of places for a clever little cow to hide when market time approaches.

For most of the day the sky was black in columns to the east and south, but as I left the rest area the winds died down and the sun came out and all the blackness moved to the north. The rest of the sky was a gentle blue and the world was absolutely glowing. It was beautiful and I could take it all in because my feet felt wonderful.

I don't mean to say they weren't hurting; they hadn't bothered me much all day. I don't know what they are playing at but I think they heard me muttering something about amputation. But leaving the rest stop, after half a mile to get the cramps out, they began to feel great. I was up to my old four mile an hour pace and every step sent waves of pure pleasure up and down my spine. I don't know what to call it, the Ecstasy of Death.

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