FT2018 Day 53: Campsite near powerlines (mile 936.5) to SR 20/Ebro (mile 944.8)

8.3 FT miles

I was in a little bit of a panic to get up this morning. I knew I had a limited amount of time to get to the post office in Ebro, or I was out of luck picking up my package until Monday morning. That is a delay of over 2.5 days in a town that pretty much just has a dog track and hotel.

Only having slept about two hours, I packed up my tent and looked around. I was extra glad that I stopped where I had, since the trail went through wetland immediately after where I had set up my tent. I didn't even see that last night. The trail in that section would have been pretty confusing in the dark as well.

It is morning already?

View from my tentsite. Somehow I didn't see the wetland a couple feet away from my tent when I set up last night.

I headed across the wetland and followed some powerlines, keeping as good of a pace as I could. I knew my body was tired from how hard I pushed it. I was running into a problem, both last night and this morning, where my stomach was growling for food, but my brain had shut down my appetite. It was really difficult to put food in my mouth at all.

Following the powerlines.

I was also worried about my leg muscles. Last night they were starting to feel like they were losing function. I had only slept 2 hours and didn't think that it would be enough time to recover from the exhaustion. Thankfully, they were working just as well as any other morning on the trail.

I followed the powerlines for a while, then made a sharp turn to enter Pine Log State Forest. The forest was pretty surprising. It consisted of swamp and pine forest, just like before, but the trail seemed better maintained. Most of the swampy sections had long, intact boardwalks. There were even superfluous boardwalks over sections that were relatively dry.

Boardwalks in Pine Log State Forest .

Vlog 1

My luck came to an end, however. There was a small creek I needed to cross. There was a blazed log crossing the creek. I'm pretty sure it was just a blazed tree that had fallen down, but there were clay tracks on it and people had clearly used it to cross.

I thought it was a little thin, but also thought I had crossed logs like it before. Plus, I was in a hurry. I made it across most of the log without issue. About 2-3 feet from the opposite bank the log surface had an uneven area. My back foot was sitting kind of awkwardly, but I moved my front door anyway, thinking my poles would counter any imbalance.

Nope. I tilted beyond recovery. Instead of fighting it and falling in awkwardly or hurting myself, I hopped off thinking the creek was only knee deep. I was wrong about this too. The water was at least up to my ribs.

I hauled myself up the bank as quickly as possible. I knew I had a time constraint, but I stopped to quickly check my gear. Surprisingly, everything seemed fine. Not too much water got in the backpack and everything that could have been ruined was in a waterproof bag or high up in the bag.

Besides the clothes I was wearing being soaked, it seemed like everything was OK. That is until I tried taking a picture with my DSLR.  It didn't work. It looked dry and was attached high up on my shoulder. Then I looked underneath. That is where I saw water. It had been splashed enough on the bottom to get the battery compartment wet.

Crap. Did I just kill my DSLR? I was already in a pretty foul mood, but now I was angry again. I believe “F**k this trail" were the words being shouted in my head. I love my DSLR.  The thought of not being able to use it for the rest of the trail was very upsetting to me.

I kept going down the trail angry, tired, and trying to move fast. I missed my turn when I got to the highway. I was supposed to cross the bridge, then use the underpass on the other side. Crap.

An interesting piece of history that I had to run past.

I reached a really scenic part of the state forest with a lake and large, pretty cypress swamps to the sides. I didn't care. I needed to keep going. I imagined myself missing the post office hours by 15 minutes despite all my efforts to get there.

I made one stop at a bathroom near the lake. I took my phone off airplane mode and had a message from the motel in Ebro. Thankfully there was availability for the night. I had the woman reserve me the room, relieved that at least one thing was going right.

Then, I looked around and noticed that I hadn't seen any orange blazes for a while. I checked my map and I was off trail again. Damn it! I got back on course, put my head down and gutted out the rest of the state forest.

I exited the forest and took the residential roads back to good ol’ SR 20. I headed for town and was grateful to see the motel sign in the distance.  It was about 11:15 am. I was going to make it! I even had time to check into the motel, dropping my bag before heading to the post office. I picked up my package, dropped it off at the motel, then grabbed some goodies from the gas station and went back to the motel for good.

Ebro Motel.

Vlog 2

The effort of the past couple days caught up with me. I ate and took a bath, elevating my feet.  They were so swollen and my legs were stiff and tired. I then laid on the bed, looking at my upcoming schedule. When I got up off the bed, my feet were very painful to step on. I was hobbling worse than I have ever hobbled on the trail.

I allowed myself a 30 min power nap, then worked on vlogs, planning out my next route and repackaging my resupply. My resupply came with food that I had not requested and I had too many meals. I had enough to finish the trail and still eat rehydrated foods for a couple days after.

I went back to the gas station to pick up Subway for dinner and some miscellaneous items. On my way back, I bumped into Mr. Breeze who was also staying at the hotel. He would be staying a couple days as he had missed the post office hours. He had actually gotten a ride around the road walks and camped in the state forest last night.

Unfortunately, he forgot to check the post office hours, took his time, and showed up at 3 pm. Now he has to stay until Monday. It kind of worked out though, because I was able to dump a lot of my excess resupply on him.

I went back to my room, already feeling much better after rest, a bath, and food. I worked on my journals and watched the Olympics the rest if the night.