Day 121: Socks, Sweat and Mouse Toilets

Date: August 8, 2017
Miles: 2144.2 – 2163.7

“Washington is about to be Thunderfluffed.” ~ Matthew aka Fluffy aka Thunderfluff

This morning we went back to Bridgeside for breakfast and waited with Matthew for the post office to open.  I swear he’s been waiting for socks to arrive for about a month.  No luck here, though.  He has the worst time with the United States Postal Service.

Socks or no socks, I was ready to leave Oregon behind.  We all crossed the Bridge of the Gods and entered Washington!

It is exciting to cross a state line, but it was even more so today because Washington is home.

My state served up an usually hot and humid day and the steep climb out of the Columbia Gorge up to 3500 feet left me drowning in sweat and exhausted. So much for doing laundry the night before! We couldn’t see much in the way of views from the trail because of smoke haze, apparently from the fires in Canada, and part of the trail took a detour onto exposed logging roads, so it wasn’t the most inspiring introduction to the most amazing state in the Pacific Northwest.  But I know that beautiful things are coming.

We camped at Rock Creek later that night. I took a much-needed bath, ate a bunch and cowboy camped. I regretted that decision a bit later on when I woke up with a mouse in my hand and another one using the snack pocket on my backpack hip belt as a bathroom, but I was too tired to do anything about it, so I let the mice do their thing and I went back to sleep.

Roll on, Columbia.

These rocks are ankle killers.

The offender in action.