NOTE: There are no photos in this post. ‘Cause I ain’t got none. Also, this post is written with a tinge of dickishness and a pinch of sarcasm. Don’t take any of it too seriously because I don’t.
Hikes are very much like rides, “a bad ride, er, hike, is still better than a good day at the office” or some such bullshit we tell ourselves. And that is mostly right, but when it’s not, it goes sort of like this;
I spent a few minutes watching Lola (the dog) take a shit in the yard early this morning. As she squatted her big-boned body, taking a dump, I sipped coffee and watched one of the neighborhood bunnies eating grass as robins bounced around near it. I took a deep breath, took in some backyard nature, swiped away the cartoon bluebirds circling my head, and then gagged as Lola’s poo apparently landed downwind.
As Lola scurried up from the grass soaked with last night’s heavy rain, I worked out the plantar fasciitis in my right foot alternated by stretching out my left calf, which has been flaring up mid-hike for the past week. Neither of these are a big deal, but if you’re someone like me who has dealt with THREE bouts of deep vein thrombosis in his adult life, any pain in the calf region can be worrisome, but with no swelling, only hurting during hard efforts, and already on an anticoagulant, I took another sip of coffee and cursed the heavy scent of dog turd hanging in the humid morning air.
While gathering my gear for the morning’s hike, I could feel a wash of “fuck it” come over me, and I really wanted to go back to bed and bask in the grey of the day in air-conditioned comfort. But instead, I laced up my shoes and set off for Deerfield.
I was about a mile down the road, and the 2014 Ford Escape was just picking up some speed on a long stretch of two-lane farm road when a rabbit ran out in front of me.
THUD!
My heart sank, and I immediately started yelling, “Fuck, FUCK, FFFFFUCK!!!” as my hands repeatedly hit the steering wheel, knowing I had just killed a rabbit with my stupid car. And on top of that, this is the SECOND animal I’ve hit in the past few weeks! Not long ago, on the SAME section of road, a bird decided it was NOT going to fly away as my car approached, and a similar thud and reaction was had.
“I didn’t mean to! It was an accident! I love animals; look at my portfolio! There are all kinds of animals and shit! I’m caring for a crippled dog!!” I thought as I continued my guilt-ridden drive.
As I entered the service road leading to the trails, I finally started talking myself down off the ledge, and before I knew it, I was breathing in a thick cloud of bug spray and heading off into the woods.
Every step greeted me with more dead bunny guilt, more want to be in my bed, and an even greater desire to not be pouring sweat and swatting OFF!-immune mosquitos at 8 AM.
Despite the lack of desire to be out lumbering, I continued on with the modest concession that I would only aim for about 4 to 4.5 miles for the day.
The woods were humid and quiet, bugs buzzed around my head, and sweat steadily dripped from my nose as I pushed on, still not 100% happy with how I felt mentally or physically.
I was just about finished, and as I turned off the trail and onto the bridge and the wide path back to the parking lot, a woman was walking towards me in the opposite direction.
As she approached, I wiped my face to not look like a sweaty psychopath and said a simple “good morning” as she passed. And was met with stone silence. To which I then followed up with, “Good, good, nice talking to you… fucking moron,” as I walked on.
Dead rabbit, calf ache, pain in the foot, covered in sweat and fading bug spray, no photos to speak of, feeling like shit, and now this person can’t even give a gahdamn nod of recognition to another human being walking past.
My brain zeroed in on the fact she was wearing glasses, an L.L. Bean fleece (it was 75˚ and humid as fuck), shorts, and river sandals for her solo “adventure” in monk-like silence along the trails. And given her “cat lady with a library card and a useless Masters in Bronze Age Gender Studies” physique, aside from this walk, the closest she’s ever been to pushing herself physically is when she forced herself to see Big Head Todd because her boyfriend, Chad, dug them. Before, he cheated on her with that girl Mia from Chile that was in his Biochemistry class junior year (The one without a stick up her ass that said hi to people and apparently slept with them— a lot).
Then as I approached the parking lot, I saw my car, the car of the two friendly older folks I see hiking every day, the two cars that were parked there when I got there (most likely the campers I saw), and now a pristine Subaru Forester without a spec of dirt on it. “I guess I know whose car THAT is!” Surely it came with the Rocky Mountain starter pack that Subaru and L.L. Bean have working on (black lab with bandana around neck not included due to past shipping incidents). For fuck’s sake, at least put a BERNIE ’24 sticker on it or something, Whitebread.
This was another classic “it’s not you, it’s me” incident, and I mean no harm to this woman; I’m sure she was busy thinking like, “This muddy, limping, sweaty, fat man with the CamelBak and trekking poles is clearly an escaped lunatic who gets off on running bunnies over with his car. And now I think his/him/he’s trying to talk to and have sex with me on a public trail!!! Where’s Chad??? Where’s Mia???”
I have no desire to talk to anyone, let alone some random person along the trail, as I sweat all over myself and anything within a 5-foot radius of my body. But I’m a human being, a polite trail user, and I know how to say hi.
I’ve also become equally terse with the dude I see at least once a week who walks his dog off the leash and then gives me a dramatic, pained, pissed-off look as he puts Rex back on the leash as I approach. In the early days, I would say, “No worries, he’s good! I don’t care!” and be friendly to the dog and owner alike as I walked by with no response from either. Now, I just quickly pass in complete silence, not caring if Rex or his owner are leashed, pissed, friendly, or dead (the owner, not Rex, long-live Rex). Fuck Rex’s owner. UPDATE: 2 hours after publishing this, I ran into Rex’s owner on my hike and properly ghosted him. However, I could not bare to ghost the dog, so I went with a very non-commital “Hey, pooch.” The dude can still go fuck himself, though.
I am now less than 25 miles away from hitting 1,000 miles hiked since September 19th, and I think my mounting injuries and decreased tolerance for fellow trail users is a giant red flag that I should ease up and take a break for a week or two, and that is my plan for sure, but first I need to see 1,000 miles. To, you know, prove I might be closing in on 52 years old like my Wife’s sneakers to a pile of dog shit, but I’m not dead yet.
This week has been shit for photos; I took very few, and very few were any good. So, rather than post shitty photos, I’m only posting shitty words.
Later.
THE SOILED SOUNDS TRACK OF THE POST