Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [108]
This journal had been my hiking partner, and every day, every rainstorm, every person I had met, it was all inside. In ten years, if I wanted to remember my hike on the Appalachian Trail, I could pull it out, look inside, and read about my adventures. I would be the only one who understood, the only one who could relate, and probably the only one who could read my handwriting.
But I wanted more than that. I wanted to share my journey. I wanted to call someone on the phone in ten years and talk about how much fun we had hiking through New Hampshire and Maine together. I wanted to store memories in people, not pages. I wanted friends, and I wanted hiking partners.
When I met Mooch and Nightwalker at the post office, Mooch gave me a hug and Nightwalker gave me an extra-long hug. They made me feel warm, wanted, and welcome, and that was important, because I was trading in my solo-hiker status for these two.
After a brief town resupply, the boys were ready to leave, and together we walked out of Hanover and back to the trail. It was raining so hard when we left that the trail resembled a creek. When the trail was this wet, you could either try to rock-hop, and place your feet on top of large slick stones rising above the current, or you could submerge your feet in four inches of water with every step. Usually, I would try to rock-hop until one foot slipped and my shoe and sock became soaked, then I would hike in the stream for the rest of the day. The boys called this the “freedom step,” because once your feet were that wet and muddy, you were free to step wherever you liked without further consequence.
I had already been liberated and was wading through ankle-deep water behind Mooch, when I looked up and started laughing. I hadn’t noticed it before, but I could now clearly see a tear in the backside of his shorts. Every time he stepped with his right foot, I could see his pale white butt cheek.
“What’s so funny?” he demanded.
I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t talk, but I could point, and that’s when Nightwalker erupted in laughter as well.
Mooch tried to look over his left shoulder, then his right, but he still couldn’t see the tear. He reached back and felt near his shorts pocket. His finger slid through the hole, and a look of shock came over his face.
Nightwalker and I doubled over. I was laughing so hard I cried.
For the rest of the day, Mooch hiked behind us.
At Smarts Mountain Cabin Shelter that evening, I sewed up Mooch’s shorts with the needle and thread that he carried in his pack. I thought it was ironic that he carried a needle and thread but didn’t know how to sew, or at least said that he didn’t. Either way, I felt like I owed him after laughing at him for most of the day. Also I didn’t want to see his butt anymore, so I was happy to do it.
The next day, we set out and all started hiking separately. I liked that. I liked that we could be hiking together, yet spend the majority of the day walking on our own, at our own pace.
It wasn’t rainy, but the trail had become so saturated with spring snowmelt and rainfall that it was a legitimate mud pit. Twice during the day I stepped in the brown sludge, only to lift up my foot without my shoe. That meant I had to hop around on one foot with a pack on my back, trying to dislodge my sneaker from the muck without getting my sock any messier than it already was.
And as if the mud weren’t enough of an obstacle, any pause allowed the bugs to attack. In Massachusetts and Vermont, there had been plenty of mosquitoes, but in New Hampshire, they had reinforcements.
Black flies, although not as large as mosquitoes, were now just as prevalent. Unlike the bites of their larger, blood-sucking cousins, black