Day 63
June 20
zero

My stomach was still hurting in the morning, although the intensity of the pain had dissipated during the night. It was clear that I would have to spend another day in town where I had a bed to rest in, even though that meant spending a lot more money than I had planned. I headed over to the cafe next door to have a lactose free breakfast wrap. Omelets were now off limits. (I hadn’t even realized that restaurants add milk to their scrambled eggs).
On the way back to the motel, I saw the Swedes! They were invited to shower in Butter’s and B-rad’s room and then planned on hitting the trail. Yesterday, I had seen Anastacia (Ice Queen) when she came running out of the pizza place as I was walking through the plaza. “Wendy!” she called. “We haven’t seen you since the Saufley’s!”. She looked so tiny in her little town dress.
I decided to be social and knocked on Butter’s door next to me. The Swedes, Archie (Sailor Moon), Butters, B-Rad, Spoonman, and Skinny D were all hanging out. I wasn’t fitting in so well, so I excused myself shortly after. My achilles was still hurting when I bore weight on my right foot and I couldn’t even dance in my room. I was both sick and injured and my spirit was not alive.
I read through my guidebook pages for the upcoming sections and noticed that the Northern Kennedy Meadows store only accepts UPS mail, which I didn’t think I had caught in my planning. I had a slight panic attack and then texted my resupply people to let them know. Then, I took a nap. I fell into the deepest sleep I had had since starting the trail, and immediately had dreams of being in the forest. My subconscious wanted to be back on the trail!

As I headed back to the organic cafe for some dinner, I ran into Seeking and Razor. Seeking couldn’t believe that my stomach was still hurting! I told him about my achilles tendon and Razor started in on how my feet probably didn’t point straight ahead and when I showed him they did, told me how I needed to be stretching. Seeking invited me to have a beer with them, but that was the last thing my stomach needed.
I brought a Kombucha drink back to my room, did some sorting and packing, and wrote a message to one of my yoga teachers who does a long distance reiki group session a couple of times a month for anyone in need. I explained what I was trying to do and that I have been in a lot of pain for the last three and a half weeks and asked if she could include me in the group. She wrote back saying that this was too much pain, that what I had done was impressive enough, and that it was time to go home. She didn’t want to see me dragging myself unnecessarily to Canada like Linus’ blanket. I was initially surprised by her response. She was the second person advising me to quit, and I had to take her opinion more seriously than the other person’s. However, I couldn’t agree that hiking only 1/3 of the trail was impressive enough and I could not imagine flying back home and returning to my couch as a failure. Who would want to celebrate me hiking only 900 miles and what was I going to do when I got home? I didn’t even have a job anymore. All I wanted to do was keep hiking this trail until I reached Canada. I came out here to hike the entire PCT. This is where I wanted to be.