Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [56]
We climbed into the first truck that passed us and dismounted five minutes later on the outskirts of Pearisburg. I quickly thanked our driver, then raced across the street to the Dairy Queen that had caught my eye.
Pearisburg was a big town, at least compared to Hot Springs and Damascus. Then again, if a town had a fast-food restaurant or a supermarket other than Dollar General, I now thought of it as a big town. Even if Pearisburg did look a little rundown, it still felt great to be in a big town, especially one with a Dairy Queen.
I dropped my pack at the door and ran to the counter, where I ordered the most decadent Blizzard on the menu. As I walked back to my pack to fetch my wallet, I felt a strange uneasiness, as if something were missing. Looking down at my belongings, I realized I had forgotten my hiking stick in the back of the pickup truck.
I ran out of the Dairy Queen and sprinted toward the gas station where Chilly and I had been dropped off. I looked at the pumps, in the parking spots, and behind the building, but the truck was gone, and so was my stick.
I couldn’t go back to the trail without my stick! The constant ups and downs with thirty pounds on my back were very hard on my knees, and without a stick they would be unbearable. My hiking stick had become an extension of my hand—I was lost without it.
I started to tear up at my loss, not so much over the stick itself, because unlike most hikers, I hadn’t spent $100 on hiking poles; instead, I used an old ski pole that Warren Doyle had given me at his Appalachian Trail Institute. He bought single ski poles at thrift stores, typically for about a buck, and handed them out as mementoes at his workshop. It was more the situation that upset me than the loss of the stick. If I couldn’t find a replacement stick tonight, I would have to stay at the hostel—with Moot—and try to find an outfitter and a new hiking pole the next morning.
Chilly reappeared from inside the gas station and came over to check on me. He walked me back over to the Dairy Queen, helped me collect my pack and my ice cream, and reminded me that if there was anything that would make the situation better, it was an Oreo, brownie, and chocolate chip Blizzard. I nodded in agreement and, ice cream in hand, we walked together to the nearby grocery store to buy rations for the next few days of hiking.
The two of us bought provisions for supper as well. We were enjoying an evening picnic outside the rundown shopping center when I noticed a Magic Mart at the end of the strip mall. I had never heard of a Magic Mart before, but I asked Chilly to watch my belongings while I went to see if they had a sporting goods section.
The Magic Mart looked like a small, dilapidated Kmart. I was disheartened to discover that they did not have a sporting goods section, but on my way out the door, the store earned its name when something magic caught my eye. To my right, I noticed a broom—which, minus the bristles, resembled a sturdy, albeit heavy, walking stick. Then I spotted a more viable lightweight alternative.
Three dollars and one bright yellow mop stick later, I had my new hiking pole.
I walked out of the store, unscrewed the gathered rope on top of the shaft, threw it away, and walked back toward Chilly. As I approached, he clapped his hands and laughed approvingly. With my problem solved, I threw my pack on my shoulders, said good-bye, and headed off into the setting sun.
Instead of hitching, I walked the mile and a half back to the trail on the shoulder of the highway, holding my bright yellow mop stick in one hand and my recharged cell phone in the other. I was such a spectacle that I actually caused rubbernecking on the highway. But I didn’t care how absurd I looked, because I was on my own once again.
I enjoyed a new sense of liberation and continued on in the dark. I hiked several miles until I found a level camping