Well most of our family and friends are well aware by now, but I felt I
should make a blog posting regardless, to sort make it official. We're off the
trail.... for now.
We've had an amazing four months on the Pacific Crest Trail and saw some
amazing places, met some amazing people and got to being comfortable living in
the dirt and being filthy and smelly for extended periods of time. Showers just
haven't offered the same euphoria since we've been home.
We got off for a few reasons. First, Julia's foot hadn't fully healed since
Chester
and was bothering her still. I had also developed some nagging injuries in my
hip and left foot. For me it was probably just plantar fasciitis and either IT
band stuff or sciatic nerve. In any event, it wasn't fun. We got off the trail
and spent a fantastic 4 days with Julia's parents and decided to hike South
back to where they picked us up and then hitch hike back up the trail. We'd
pass a ton of people that were about a week and a half ahead of us and it would
be great to see old faces that we may not have seen in many weeks or even
months! We got back on in Cascade Locks and headed south. We made it about 15
miles out and camped. That night Julia went to go pee and stepped in non buried
human fecal matter. Not a fun way to spend your first night back on trail. We
got up the next morning and got going but neither of us were into it. We
stopped and talked for a long while and decided that was it. It probably seems
kind of "all of a sudden" but not really. It was the toughest
decision ever and we turned around about a dozen times. Ultimately we
backtracked to Cascade Locks, picked up our stuff at Shrek's place and got a
hitch into
Portland where we picked
up a car and had a "honeymoon" of sorts.
Home now and dreaming of a new adventure.... not that we won't go back to
finish the PCT one day. We will. Unquestionably.
