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Trail Legs, Meat, Garlic, and Crosses
The trail continues. It winds back and forth, goes up and down. A day on trail is becoming the normal day. A standard against which all other days are measured. My legs are stronger, my feet — calloused and leathery. The aches and blisters that defined early days of hiking have been forgotten along the trail. But with this relief comes new struggles, the primary of which is hunger.
I am deeply hungry. The candy and noodles that are typical in my hiking diet no longer satisfy me. I crave little else than meat. A juicy steak or burger in town is the only time I feel full, but even then, it doesn’t last long. I pack out all the beef jerky and sausage that dollar general can provide.
Tastes often change during a hike. When new hikers send a resupply to every town before starting, they are more often than not abandoned to the hiker box. Nuts are usually the first to go. They’re healthy and calorically dense, but at some point, it is difficult to stomach even a single almond. For me, it is garlic. After cooking spaghetti and pork with far to much garlic in a hostel, even the thought of it makes me sick. I can even taste the garlic powder in top ramen flavor packets. I think it may be time to research a carnivore only diet.
Hiking in the South is a new experience. The very apparent religious presence is not something that I’m used to. Bibles are left in shelters. Trailside cemeteries are filled with crucifix tombstones. Churches sit at otherwise empty roads. I don’t mean to hate on any religion, and I’ve had no bad experiences with these people (save for an ice chest filled with Bibles instead of trail magic), but something about the crosses makes me uncomfortable.
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Comments 4
I find you a very sad person if a cross triggers you and I am not religious nothing I see that is not physically offensive bothers me grow up
Read his other posts. He’s writing a story about turning into a vampire. It’s one long joke.
First he’s bitten by a bat, then sunlight hurts and is forced to walk at night, now crosses make him uncomfortable and only red meat satisfies him (bloody meat).
Clever, but this isn’t your typical blogger, don’t feel sorry for him.
What? That’s absolutely not what I’m doing! I’m just writing about my very real and true experience on the AT
I find it sad that you never learned to use any form of punctuation.