The One Celebrating New Shoes — And Readers

Date : 1/13/24 — Day 12 

“0” Day Count = 1

Location : Key Largo Inn, Key Largo, FL, MM 100.8

Starting Point : MM 95

Weather :

Dropping the decimal portion and using whole numbers only, eg, 1, 2, 7, etc. yesterday I trekked 10 miles (MM 86-96).  It wasn’t easy.

Oftentimes, the sunny 😎,  humid 🥵 weather — while carrying a load, was overwhelming.  I took at least two 1-hour long breaks.  Not intentionally, mind you, I did stuff, like compose blogs, call my mother, proactively avoiding sunstroke.

At MM 96, I rested a while behind some lovely FSP landscaping.  It wasn’t a great location, eg, close to the highway = LOUD, the landscaping was kinda shrubby, and other minor irritations.  The sky was pitch black, perhaps as you might see out at sea ⛵, far removed from the cities’ artificial light pollution.  I watched Orion and the Big Dipper (Ursa Major, the Big Bear) rotate around Polaris.

I don’t think I slept.  If so, not for long.  Large, throaty pick ’em up trucks busily pulled trailered fishing boats ⛵ down US Route 1 at breakneck speeds.  Somewhere between 0200 and 0300, I rolled up my Tyvek tarp, folded the laughably oversized sleeping mattress, and began again.

I was getting a bit desperate to find a room.  Around 0500, I spied the Key Largo Inn.  Most hotel front offices close between 2000 and 2200.  The Key Largo Inn was closed, too.  Needing a place to wash my clothes and actually sleep, I waited 2.5 hours for the inn’s front office personnel to arrive.

Aside : Like everything NOT on Key West, Key Largo — and everywhere else, rolls up the sidewalks at dusk.  Hotel front offices close between 2000 and 2200.  For example, at 1845 yesterday evening, I tried getting a pizza from a Mom & Pop place.  They close at 1800.  Daily.  Same with the Tattoo joint, and every other retailer with 2 exceptions — McDonald’s and Dairy Queen.

Today Feels Like Christmas!  

After completing 10 miles yesterday, I’ve already completed an additional 5 miles since 0001 this morning.  In a sense, that’s 15 miles in a single day.

Unfortunately, I seem to have dropped my cheap reader glasses at MM 96.  I’m farsighted, so I only need readers to read or clearly “see” objects closer than my elbow.  The local Walgreens cheap reader selection requires only one word — cornucopious!

Also, the first set of replacement trail runners arrived — Merrill Moab 3.  I have approximately 10 pairs of shoes 👟 for the 5,500 mile long ECT trek : 9 are new, 2 are older, dating to my 2016 Afghanistan deployment.

The shoes 👟 I tossed are from 2016.  I don’t know how many miles they have on them, not “many”.  The left shoe 👠 delaminated from the toe to the ball of the foot.  I suspect the glue finally threw in the towel.

Ok, I’m a gonna try to talk my way into an early check-in.

 

Wish me luck.

— HW