Day 114: Zero day in Ashland

So today I took a zero day in Ashland. And it's been a while since I've taken a zero: the last one was in South Lake Tahoe, which was 20 days ago! I remember Ghost, way back near Scissors Crossing, mentioning that when you got to Oregon and Washington, you had to *earn* zeros (versus in southern California, where you could just take them). And I'm not sure I've necessarily earned a zero--which I interpret as doing enough big miles that a 0 in the mileage column doesn't affect your ultimate Canada arrival date--but I am sure that the body is starting to break down more than I'd like, so I took the zero.

And basically spent the entire day writing. First at the ReMix Coffee Bar (which is a great spot: I set up next to an outlet and wrote for almost four hours--and two meals!--there), then at the Ashland Public Library (which was nice but not as nice as the ReMix Coffee Bar--you have to wear a mask at the library, and there's too much pressure to stay quiet all the time). Got a lot of time in: 9am-1pm at the Remix, then a break to pick up my washed sleeping bag and take a bus, then 2:30pm-4pm (closing time) at the library. And with all that time, actually managed to make a dent on the entries. The problem with the blog is that I post things in order, so if there's a day that I haven't finished, it ends up backing up the queue quite a bit. But I finished up some of those pesky entries, and also caught up some of the more recent entries, so hopefully will be publishing a big series tomorrow. Writing this blog is a lot of work--I have a newfound appreciation for the newspaper folks who write this much (and more!) *every* *single* *day*. But I started it, so now I have to finish it. You'd think that eventually I'd figure out some way to look at it so that it becomes a joy to do--an application of the advice my mother always gives. But I also think that joy--if it's there--must be a dynamic thing, being a different thing every day, or every few days, and something I'll have to continuously search for. Which, eh, sounds like a lot of work. Which, eh, means I'll probably not find it!

But since I'm writing all day and that's not interesting to, umm, write about, I'll instead take this opportunity to reflect a bit. And looking over this last section--northern California--I can see why people will quit the trail here. Because the woods seem interminable. And I skipped 300 miles of them! In the desert, I remember one of the things I liked was the way you'd walk through two or three biomes in a day. But here, in northern California, there are maybe two: woods or rocky slopes. And you just trade from one to the other throughout the day. Sometimes you get a sort of in-between variation: burn areas, which have the trunks of woods, but usually with the rocky soil of rocky slopes, but really that's it. So if your motivation is seeing beautiful things, is witnessing extraordinary things, in nothern California that's not going to work the same way it did in the desert. Which is to say: I'm going to have to find another way to see beauty, find another way to see extraordinary things.

And I have about 500 miles in Oregon to do it!

Looking ahead to Oregon, I admit this is where the trail starts to become hard for me. Because I don't mind the heat--you put me in 100+ degree weather and I'll take it and keep moving--but I tend to wither in the rain and cold. Very little tolerance for both. And now, in Oregon and especially upcoming in Washington, those cold rainy days are going to start coming. I'm not looking forward to them--unlike Double Snacks, I don't enjoy thru-hiking in the rain (I enjoy *day-hiking* in the rain, but not *thru-hiking*)--but I think I'm going to have to figure out some way to enjoy them nonetheless. Right now, I can't see how that can happen, but it's one of those things you can't really anticipate but have to figure out in the moment, the cold, rainy moment. So it's with some fear and trepidation that I begin these next two big sections of the trail: I'm out of the stuff I'm familiar with--from my southern California day-hikes, from my yearly sojourns into the Desolation Wilderness--and into new, unexplored territory. And while other hikers have been dealing with the unknown for well nigh 1500 miles, I'm just getting into it. So we'll see how I do!

Oh, speaking of Double Snacks: on a sadder note, today Double Snacks headed back to trail (or at least to Callahan's; she was debating whether to get back on trail this afternoon or to wait for tomorrow morning), so she's out there while I'm still here. Oh, and yesterday I had pinged AC/DC--I had seen her name in the trail register at Callahan's--and she and Outlast had actually headed out of Ashland the day before yesterday. So again I'm in the situation where the folks I had been hiking with are now ahead. And after hiking with Dylan and Uno in the Sierras, then joining up with them and AC/DC and Outlast and Lux and Kahleesi from Mammoth to Tahoe, then Double Snacks from Tahoe to here, now I'll be back on my own again. It's been a while, and there's a change of mentality that goes with it, but it'll be good to get that change I think. And besides, these days gaps are more fickle--a fire closure and suddenly the folks who were behind catch up--so I might end up hiking with them yet.

Oh, and finally, a health update. First, the ribs. The ribs are largely healed, but not fully healed, and I don't think they'll be fully healed until after the trail. Right now, I can breathe fine, and I can sneeze and cough and laugh out loud all without any pain. When I'm under a lot of physical strain--like climbing up a steep hill--I'll sometimes sense a sort of knot in my lower ribs, something that I have to breathe deeply to stretch out. That's a remnant from the injury. And, again after a lot of physical strain, when I sometimes reach out for something with my right arm (like reaching for something in my tent at the end of the day), I'll feel that tightness again and need to stretch it out. Like I said, I don't think the ribs will heal completely until I can get off trail and really rest: they're good enough now that they don't bother except in certain instances, but put enough strain on the body and those seams will start to show. Second, the cold is largely resolved, been good for I think a week now? Something like that. I remember I woke one morning and realized I didn't have a coughing fit in the middle of the night, and was happy, but then the smoke days started happening. (So maybe that was as early as the night before going into Sierra City?) But the cold is largely resolved, and I dumped a lot of the extra Dayquil/Nyquil medication I was carrying (still keeping some, though, because you never know). Third, my feet. I've noticed that, on my left foot, the big toe has begun to go numb. And I remember back in Seiad Valley, as he was using a cork ball to roll out his arches, Almost Famous mentioned the idea of "Christmas Toes": his toes were going numb too, and they wouldn't come back until Christmas. I think that's true for mine as well. I switched to the Topos for the extra padding to prevent the numbness, and I'll try to adopt some other practices (using the poles more, tightening my laces), but I think the numbness is inevitable given the pounding my feet are taking, and, yeah, probably won't resolve until Christmas!

Anyway, those are my (rather disjointed thoughts) on this day that was consumed with the thoughts of other, previous days. It was a pretty good day--felt good to get a lot of these entries done and off the docket--and hopefully I'll be able to be more consistent (and diligent) in future and not let the queue build up quite so much!

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Some notes:

-- The ReMix Coffee Bar is indeed a great spot, and I can't recommend it more highly. In retrospect, I could have stayed there all day--they close at 5pm, even later than the library--and would have, but that I wanted to go to Safeway to pick up some additional resupply. The morning staff was great: very nice, very helpful, chatted a bit about the trail, and never felt any pressure to get out of there. (Well, I *did* order a bunch of pastries and finger sandwiches, so maybe that helped!) But if I was in Ashland again, and wanted a place to (as Conrad Rushing would say), just sit and write, I'd go back to the ReMix.

-- Also, I ordered a ginger turmeric kombucha at the ReMix and it was pretty good. That's the second ginger kombucha I've had--the first was in Truckee--and they've both been good. I'm always on the lookout for ginger drinks, so this is exciting for me: a whole new genre of ginger has opened up! And I remember that, back in the day, Leslie used to make kombucha, at home. Hmm, when I get off trail I will have to ping her about how to do that, then find myself a ginger (and possibly ginger turmeric--advanced!) recipe online, and give it a shot!

-- By the way, the bus in Ashland is *so* convenient for hikers (at least during the day, when it runs). I downloaded the app to pay my fare digitally and even though it seems I can only get a $6 day pass, it's worth it. The bus system is hooked into Google Maps, so putting a destination into Google Maps then hitting the public transit option will walk you to the station, get you on the bus, show you going by the stops, and walk you off the bus to your destination. Pretty well integrated! Just be careful: Google Maps and the bus actually name the stops differently--Google uses street names, whereas the bus uses venue names. But just watch your progress on the bus in real-time on Google Maps, pay attention as the stops go by both in real-life and on your screen, and you'll be fine.

-- In my call with Terry this evening (for resupply stuff: Crater Lake, the next resupply, is going to be a big one), he mentioned that, from my writing, it seems that everyone I meet is nice. And thinking about that some, there's a couple of things there. First, the rough edges of folks--and the folks who are going to come out here and do this sort of thing, the sort of independence required, well, you're going to have some rough edges--those I don't tend to write about because I don't tend to focus on them. So there's that. Second, and this is the big secret: the vast majority of people you meet? There's nice people, at least on the inside. And maybe that's the Christianity in me talking, that believes that everyone can be redeemed, and hence that there's something redeemable and valuable in every person, but on the inside, for the most part, people are nice. They may not know how to socially show it all the time--I have that problem myself a lot of the time, I'm not great with social conventions, especially with folks I don't know--but inside, I think that people are basically nice. And here's the second big secret: if you want people to be nice to you, be nice to them first. Full disclosure: it doesn't always work, sometimes you're nice and they're mean in response. That happens. But a lot of the time, if you're nice, they're nice. The sociologists will tell us that humans are social animals, so things like being able to get along with others, and reciprocity, are baked into tens of thousands (if not more) years of evolution and DNA. But yeah, people are nice in general, and people on the trail may be perhaps nicer just because of the shared experience we're having right now. And, of course, those edges and rough patches--which I have bumped into because we all have them--well, I often just don't bother to write those up!

-- To be fair, there are some negative characteristics that thru-hiking tends to exaggerate, things like elitism and its cousin gatekeeping, a sense of privilege and a disregard of other people's social conventions, a certain selfishness (the dark side of the oft-quoted mantra "hike your own hike"), and of course all the garbage and waste we generate (lots and lots of single-use packaging, for example). If I ever feel really negative, I'll rant about these, but for now, yeah, they're there, but it's more interesting to focus on the positive stuff!