It was a bit of a rough night with a full moon shining like a lamp in my eyes. On top of that, there was a really gusty wind all night that woke me up at least every hour. In the morning everyone agreed it was a terrible nights sleep. The bright side was that we knew we’d be in town pretty quickly.
We had a pleasant stroll across a Mesa while the sun rose, then dropped down to the highway into Grants. Then we walked into town, passing a prison, followed by a Forest Service office. We were met at the edge of town by a trail angel, Hugo Mumm and whisked away to his house. We met his wife, Carole, and got settled into their spare room.
The rest of the day was a blur of the regular chores, although Carole did our laundry for us and chauffeured us around town all day, while also slow-cooking our dinner! We had an all you can eat Pizza Hut lunch, and figured out logistics for the rest of the trail. It looks like my split from Chance, Piper, and Kevin is inevitable now, as we are committed to finishing at different trail terminuses. They had half convinced me to go their way, in conversations over the last few days. In the end, I’m going to trust that my pre-hike research about which way I would prefer was correct.
We had a big dinner and conversations into the evening, but fairly quickly retired to bed due to lack of sleep last night.
Daily Summary
Date: Oct 12, 2011
Day 111
Daily Distance: 8.8 miles
Trip Distance: 2204.4 miles