Today is better (which isn’t saying much, I realize). We wake
in our soggy, buggy campsite surrounded by car campers. There are people
everywhere—along the road in both directions, up and down the hill. I walk more
than a quarter mile to find a place to dig a hole in the morning.
I start off on my own without breakfast (a first for me) and
the trail eventually leaves the dark damp muck of our campsite for dry, sandy,
rocky trail bordered by pine trees. The forest is thick but occasionally breaks
for lovely mountain views. The trail starts with a steep climb and then we
should have beautiful views of Breckenridge.
I stop midmorning to cook pad Thai on the jet boil. Granite
catches up and spreads out the tent to dry.
Coming into Breckenridge seems to take forever, and we don’t
find water when we expect to. When we finally pass a tiny stream, I gratefully
stick my achy feet in. Granite chastises me for putting my feet in the water
when another hiker is trying to filter, then chastises me for sitting on a
bridge where a mountain biker could hit me. I pack up my stuff quickly and head
on.
Bugs slowly devour my legs on this section, but it happens so
gradually that I don’t think to douse myself in DEET until most of the damage
is done.
We arrive in Breckenridge much later than we expected and stay
at the Wayside, an abomination of a hotel that was the only place we could find
with an open room while calling around from the mountainside. The shower faucet
is half-ripped from the wall and we have to buy a little bottle of shampoo and
conditioner from the front desk.
After a shower, I am more or less sane. We get an uber into
town (thank you thank you thank you little app then sends me cars in mere
moments!) and we eat a huge amount of pizza, drink a glass of wine, then stop
at a dive bar because after yesterday all I want is to be a little numb for a
while.
Then: lounging on a hotel bed watching Divergent on TNT, quiet.
We slip out into the parking lot to sit in the hotel hot tub for 15 minutes, wearing our underwear, streetlights
shining down on us. The Wayside is one of the few dog-friendly hotels in the
area and every person seems to have an anxious terrier trapped in the room. We
go to sleep, and yesterday seems more manageable.
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