Day Two-Hundred-Twenty-Five, Nostalgia

Blisters defined the early days of this trip.  I walked my first thousand miles with a limp.  Or in some brand of pain.  You get used to it but it had some effect on my mood.

Walking is a sort of meditation.  You try to step out of yourself.  And let your mind wander to higher things.  You don't want to think about feet.  Or your odd aches or how hungry you are.  Or old loves forever gone.  Or those that keep threatening to come back again.  The first time hurt just enough.

I got a brand new blister today, a good one, one for the books.  On the seaward side of my left foot.  I don't know where it came from.  It just turned up, about three miles in.  My shoes are by now a bit worn.  I should have replaced them but I did not have the heart.  Or the cash.  I'd been too long indoors.

They've lasted longer than any pair I've had yet, though I've had this same pair once before.  They were made by the Merrell company.  They got them right this time.  But I cannot give them my full endorsement until some cash changes hands. 

Seriously.  If I could do this again I would arrange for some sponsorship.  I'm doing great things here.  There is no way I should have to buy my own shoes.  I don't know how one goes about lining that up.  I'm not sure I have the cheek.  I could have written and asked but they might have said no.  That would have done me in.  The only thing worse than being a corporate whore is being an unwanted corporate whore.

So I'm free to say their shoes gave me a blister.  A great big juicy one.  I've skewered it with my nose hair scissors.  I still managed twenty-one miles.  But I was limping a bit.  It coloured my mood.  Merrell should be ashamed of itself.

It was a nice walk in spite of things.  The weather was humid and hot.  There is not much to see on this stretch of road, just a great many trees.  Live oaks, I believe they are called.  Rather handsome, at that.  They keep their leaves all winter long.  Their acorns are comparatively puny.  And litter the roads like ball bearings.  They may yet break my neck.

I did as I'd hoped find a gas station.  There's been one every five miles.  But I couldn't be sure.  I loaded up on food when I got to the first.  Hostess Fruit Pies and sandwiches.  I've just finished one now.  Just in time to realise I should not be eating in my tent.

There may or may not be bears around here.  I am pretty close to the road.  But bears, like most right-thinking Americans, do enjoy a good sandwich.  The hobo I met a few days back had one come into his tent.  But he got away, uninjured.  "That's why I sleep in my boots."

I am camped near a narrow canal.  It may too be full of gators.  I'm like Marlin Perkins out here, surrounded on all sides.  There is in fact something out there now.  I don't know what it is.  I'm telling myself that it's a chipmunk so I can get some sleep.

Goodnight.

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