Day 133

(Originally written on Monday, September 14)

I can't hear anything over the sound of rushing water all around me. This is one of the best campsites I've had on the entire trip. It is wedged between the "V" formed by two creeks coming together. One of them has silty gray water from Mt. Adams' lava fields and the other is crystal clear. This has obviously been a popular spot for other backpackers for quite some time. The ground is nearly perfectly level and free of rocks. A spot like this is more rare than you'd think!

I'm happy to be in my sleeping bag and getting ready to go to sleep. I'm so tired from not sleeping well last night. I should have slept great since I was in a real bed but it just didn't work out that way. I was probably thinking too much about what I needed to do. So I kept waking up and seeing that only an hour had passed. I think another reason I didn't sleep well is because the pressure of keeping up the forward progress is neverending and will remain so until I'm done, with or without snow.

To complicate matters, I forgot to take my two Advil that I usually take at the end of each day. I take them to keep any inflammation from getting too crazy, but apparently they help with pain, too, because I woke up several times experiencing pain in my left foot that usually doesn't bother me at night. Lesson learned...I didn't forget tonight!

So here it is 9 pm on a Monday night and I'm not watching Monday Night Football (what's the world coming to?). Instead, I'm horizontal in a sleeping bag really looking forward to sleeping. Exciting stuff, huh?