memorial day 2007

This past weekend I wanted to get far, far away from the lab and from life. What better way to "escape" than to hike with a heavy bag 10 miles into the woods of the Appalachian foothills?

I set out on Friday afternoon to Columbus, where I stayed overnight with my brother in his "new" place (it's the first time I've been there, so it's new to me, although it's several months old to him). Saturday morning we drove to Shawnee State Forest and found the backpack trail after visiting with a park ranger who told us to watch out for rattlesnakes. We strapped on our backpacks, laden with food, bedding, shelter, clothing, and cooking equipment.

On Saturday we hiked about 10.4 miles, then we stayed overnight at one of the "campsites." It was next to a stream bed (not much water in it, so it wasn't quite a stream) from which we could hear some frogs croaking to each other. There was a latrine not too far away, but I was too scared to use it without the door open because there were some HUGE crickets that made big noises when they jumped out of the "toilet" and onto the wooden walls. S-C-A-R-Y...!

We set up camp and made hot food and then did some reading and resting and stretching in the tent. We also did a search for ticks on our legs and were astounded to actually find one loosely attached to my brother! He smushed it and threw it outside the tent. I slept well in my new super-duper Slumberjack sleeping bag, but I discovered that the birds all wake up really early...and they're very loud!When I finally emerged from the tent, I found that our tick friend (or one of his buddies) had revived from the smushing and had climbed onto the tent! I threw him in the latrine.

That second day we hiked a bit further but had more time to get there, since we started in the morning instead of the afternoon. The trail took us over some little streams and through heavily vegetated areas and up some fairly steep hills. Not the least of these was the hill just before our campsite destination - upon looking at a map after one of our routine breaks we decided it would take about 30 minutes to get to this site, but we told each other to tack on another half hour just so we'd be prepared for the worst...and it was a good thing, because it did indeed take the entire projected hour to get through the last leg of that hike because it was all uphill! It was very nice to finally get to the site where we could set up camp. I was really ready for a long rest!

Again we set up the tent and cooked food and did a tick check. We found another tick on my brother. Truly, it seemed like every time we stopped we found one on him; there had definitely been one when we had stopped for lunch. Probably it wasn't that he is more appealing to ticks but that he went first on all of the trails, so he probably just accumulated all of the ticks before I had a chance to encounter any of them.

On Memorial Day we hiked the remaining 4.3 or so miles back to where we had started. The final part of the trail dumped us out by the State Park's lake...and I really wished that we had packed swim suits so we could jump in to cool off. I didn't know that it was possible for anyone to sweat as much as I did over those three days. Every day when I took off my pack at the camp my shirt was drenched in sweat. When the shirt finally dried by midday the next day, it had lines of sweat caked on it! I guess this stresses the importance of keeping well-hydrated while backpacking! And also the importance of bringing at least one change of clothes...which I did not in fact do (I had to wear my pajamas one day on the trail because my regular shirt was so gross...).

that's my pj shirt

All in all it was an awesome weekend! I had become so far removed from work and "real life" that I was actually wanting to get back to it! That's what I call refreshment!

that's my gross shirt