Day 92: Dead End- 20km (Foot) 34km (Trailer)

Carrie's in Dwight to Tammy & Ken's in Emsdale.

This was the closest day to me feeling that I’ve had enough. That I want to stop. Thinking that something is wrong with my body. Why is it not working? Why does one foot infront of the other seem to just cause pain. Suffering is different from pain, I’m in control of my suffering - I kept telling myself. It didn’t matter. My mood, my body, my mind, my spirit. They were all sore. Tired. Can we just stop and sleep here? We don’t have anything with us, but I don’t care, just.. no more. But we did go more. One of us should be picking the other one up, I thought. But instead, we both felt the same. Which is sometimes okay. This kind lady brought us crackers, cheese and cherries and water, and we stopped at a little beach spot.

I tried to nap, but bugs and horses. Joseph, Brittaney and Hayven were going to meet us for lunch. We still had 30km and really needed to get going. But Joseph said wait, so we did. They were late, we were exhausted, the sun came out and it was hot. So by 3pm, we had 30km ahead. Hills and hills. How does one control their thoughts? Music? Nothing worked. My muscles ached. I pulled a muscle near my knee, my feet were getting new blisters from the temporary 30$ runners I had, the plastic was coming through. Lack of sleep, exhaustion. It just was. There was no positive thinking my way out of it. The fact that we were suddenly lost pulled me out of my self-deprecating revery. Go straight to a dead end, or turn left on to a road filled with these signs:

My favourite was “Not responsible for accidents or deaths.” Ha! Well we sure as hell weren’t turning back. It was eerie. I had the feeling we were being watched, but it was probably just my paranoia. A long dirt road, hills and trees on either side. Suddenly all this old machinery started to appear; tractors, tanks, more tractors. It was creepy. Abandoned. We went up a hill, then we see a trailer and two big dogs start barking. The smell of weed drifts out and a woman (thank goodness) steps out of the trailer. “Hi there, sorry to bother you guys, but we’re lost..” She explained the trail that showed on our map didn’t exist. It looked like we could have kept going on the driveway.. but we were trespassing so it’s not like we could just run by her. She said we could go back to the gait and follow the ATV trails, but it was a huge swamp and even ATVers had been getting stuck. Our best bet was to go back down the road aways to the dog sledding house and ask him about trails. So we turned around. Discouraged, it was 4:30.. should we try the trails, there was also snowmobile trails.. but those trails are good in winter, when everything is snowed over. Who knows what swamps would be there. We wouldn’t have a map, Jewel’s phone was almost dead, and we had limited daylight. So we went to dine Brad, the dog sled man. We met another man instead who told us the same thing the woman did. Our maps said we could turn back, and instead of the 22km we were supposed to have left (had the maps been right) we would have to back track and do 34km. Most of which would be on the four lane highway 11.

Earlier that day, Melissa and Doug, who had picked up our packs after offering their barn, also offered us a trailer should we need it. Well hey. This is exactly when we needed it. She was there with the trailer hooked up and our gear transferred to her big pick up in an hour. Lux took under 20 minutes to get on. Jewel literally puppeteer him on. She picked up his hooves one at a time and lifted them up until he was on the trailer. It was kind of hilarious. I distracted him by feeding him while Jewel worked her magic. Jewel is definitely amazing when it comes to loading. I envy her patience and tactics.

After a quick stop we were at Tammy’s, two sweaty horses happy to be on firm ground, and completely unaware of the travel distance they just avoided.

Melissa stuck around and helped us get settled. Ken and Tammy were super helpful and got us extra rope and a ratchet so we could tighten the stretched highline. They had lots of hay and were happy, and we got the trailer, and were happy. We ordered pizza for dinner, and watched an episode of the Office while chowing down. I passed out so easily in the trailer bed after four days in the tent. Thank god today was over.

After a quick stop we were at Tammy’s, two sweaty horses happy to be on firm ground, and completely unaware of the travel distance they just avoided.

Melissa stuck around and helped us get settled. Ken and Tammy were super helpful and got us extra rope and a ratchet so we could tighten the stretched highline. They had lots of hay and were happy, and we got the trailer, and were happy. We ordered pizza for dinner, and watched an episode of the Office while chowing down. I passed out so easily in the trailer bed after four days in the tent. Thank god today was over.