Day 50
Miles today: 21.7 miles
Miles so far: 933.5 miles
Campsite: Stealth Campsite

*beep beep beep* Joey’s alarm o’clock going off at 515. I decided to get up at 530 and we were hiking by 6am, at sunrise.

The hike this morning was quite nice. In the woods, with an actual hill to get up on. Woohooo elevation change! Haha
There was a detour on a dirt road then back on trail. After that it was basically 12 miles of road walking. Yuck!! At least we took a break at a gas station that was serving hot food so I had the most random pre-lunch. An egg roll, a corndog and 3 fried chicken piece, because why not?! I don’t think I’ll ever eat fried chicken after this trail. It’s not even that great but after all that hiking, it sounded good. Ha!

After the rain we got a few days ago, temps have dropped and it is now lows of 40s and highs of 60s. Makes for great hiking weather. Like Luke Bryan’s song “rain is a good thing, rain makes corn and corn makes whiskey…” blah blah blah. So yeah, Rain is a good thing. Ha!

Half of the afternoon was still on the road. Road walking is a pain in the arse. Yeah you tend to get more mileage in but it’s so boring. I did see an Ironman (the race) spray painted mile marker… Woohoo. That’s pretty much about the most exciting thing on the road so far. You always have to make sure no cars are swerving your way etc… Or your hat don’t fly away as a big semi truck pass by at 65 mph. It’s not fun. We calculated that the trail has about 300 miles of road… That means about 15 days of hiking on pure roads! Yuck! A woman did stop and asked if we wanted a ride. We refused. Dammit, I am going to hike the rest of this darn road walk once and for all and I wont yellow blaze it either! It was tempting. Road walking is boring as heck.

45min before the end of the day, i stepped in a puddle that was unavoidable. BUMMER. my toes got wet. I got soooo close to the end with dry feet. Ha! Talking about my toes… I have never received an email back from the rep at Altras from my previous inquiry 3 or 4 weeks ago. I’ve decided to go ahead and use this pair of shoes until they literally die on me. I’ve already have holes on the sides of my big toes where branches gets caught on and I drag them until I pick them out. The rubber at the toes are starting to peel also… Not bad for 900+ miles… This trail is easy on shoes, as Joey pointed out. I’m determined to use them until Fort Pickens! Less than 200 miles!

Nothing crazy exciting happened today, beside me eating like a pig at the gas station again but hey, what’s new?! I can tell I have lost some weight on my hips as my pack waist straps now sits on them and rubs a bit. I hope I don’t end up like Cheryl Strayed!

Bed time, tomorrow I get to be a lazy bum in the motel room.I need to figure out what’s happening with Eglin. It’s coming up and seems to be closed during weekdays and if I can’t hike, I am not trespassing on a Military base ha nor road walking. Let’s see what happens…
Happy trails!