I (Sam) woke up to the clattering of James’ tent poles this morning, an immediate sign that I would be starting a little behind. I also had some shopping to do, as I needed some sort of jacket/sweater and a collared shirt for an interview I would be having in a few days. I also ended up stopping at the local grocery store to get some more nutritious food given that I wanted to fix up my diet to avoid future migraines. This whole process took about 2 hours, as I definitely took my time. At one point or another during this, I got a text from James saying that he had to backtrack 2.5 miles due to a barbed wire fence blocking him from getting back onto the interstate from the service road. I appreciated his sacrifice. I found a decent shirt at Family Dollar, the only one that they had, and headed off on my way. I sat down for about 20 minutes at an abandoned gas station to watch the final moments of the Bears game before getting onto the interstate. The game ending was absolutely horrid, making it more difficult to get on the road. We also saw a rifle on the road! After about 12 miles, I was able to hop onto the service road for the remainder of the day. This was good, as I did not want to walk on the interstate at night. I started to feel some sniffles. While listening to Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, I decided that I would finish up at around 23 miles, right before the road turned into a dirt path that would be difficult to navigate at night with a dim headlamp due to ailing batteries. I talked to my brother on the phone while pitching my tent, and got a pretty good night of sleep despite the freight trains screeching about 100 feet behind me.
The greatest challenge today was pushing through my cold symptoms. I wasn’t feeling debilitated or anything, but they would have made an easy excuse to stop early. I pushed on for about another 5 miles after I started feeling crummy and definitely felt better about it in the morning.
10/9/22
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