July 15
Last night, I ordered a few things online that will all arrive by the weekend – a new sun hoodie, one that’s not made out of wool, a more breathable hat not made of cotton, an Ursak bag to replace my bear can and drop about 2lbs, a mosquito net suit, some new shorts since mine are too big again, a pouch to store a water bottle on my backpack strap, a little hand fan that doubles as a power bank, and some electrolytes made by a company that creates electrolytes for people with chronic illnesses (including EDS). These electrolytes have more minerals in them than just sodium. They have the type of magnesium and vitamin B that I need, so I can also stop carrying extra supplements.
I sorted through my things last night, finding things I could leave at home to lighten my pack even further – my puffy jacket which I think I’ve worn a total of 15 times, my roll pad I had used under my sleeping pad, my bear can, my wool headband, my notebook, my water bottle tube, which is basically impossible to keep clean. I’m planning on swapping out my 10° sleeping bag for my Zenbivy quilt that weighs half as much. Cutting these extra items amounts to 3 or 4 pounds total, which will be helpful if I need to carry an extra power bank to charge my new watch and fan, and the addition of my 5oz sun umbrella. Cutting extra stuff to accommodate the weight of these things feels worth it, if it means I can keep hiking and I think my net pack weight is about to go down quite a bit.
I want to be back on the trail, and perhaps with my new thermostat watch, better electrolytes, the addition of my sun umbrella again, a non wool sun hoodie, a non cotton hat, a much lighter backpack, and some easier terrain at lower elevation, hiking alone at my own pace, I’ll be able to handle the heat a little bit better. I’m going to try anyway, and I’m always willing to try. I figured out my shoes, and that took 800 miles, but I’m always going to keep looking for solutions, no matter how long it takes.
One of the reasons I had ditched the food I had packed in my boxes was because it all required cooking, and I didn’t want to spend the time to cook everything, but if I’m going to hike slower, at my own pace, I don’t think it matters. The food I packed for myself was more nutritious than a lot of the things I had been eating on trail recently, so when I go home, I’m planning on adjusting some of the things in the boxes and sending them to myself for Oregon and Washington. I have a much better sense now of how much food I need per day, and I’m hoping that taking the time to think through each day’s food will help me avoid carrying too much. The only section that I actually wrote out what I planned to eat each day and then bought only that amount of food was when I hiked though the Sierra. Ironically, the most difficult section of the whole trail was really the only time when I got it exactly right. I almost always have had too much food, because I haven’t planned out the days well and then just bought extra stuff at the grocery store that I never ended up eating.
I feel excited. I almost feel like the last 1,100 miles of the trail was just training, and now my hike can really begin. I actually know what the hell I’m doing now. Sort of.
I spent the day scooting around along the beach, and then scooted through Golden Gate Park. I sat and had coffee at a coffee shop and lost track of time. I started heading back toward my aunt’s house since I was going to meet her at 1pm and bring lunch. I stopped at Trader Joe’s and bought some salads, and some Trader Joe’s coffee ice cream, which is probably my favorite ice cream ever. Their mint chocolate chip is also really good. I had hyped up this ice cream and had promised to bring some. I fit everything into my backpack and didn’t need to take any bags from the store. I scooted the rest of the way. I could have walked, but I paid for a lot (probably too many) scooter minutes so I was determined to use them.
We had lunch, and then watched a video of a Alonzo King’s Ballet, that had some interviews with Alonzo, the dancers and the musicians. My aunt used to be on the board of the ballet and her upstairs neighbor helped start the company and was a former dancer herself. She used to take me to the rehearsals when I was extremely young, and that’s where my love of dance began.
I grew up taking ballet classes, gymnastics, and I competed in figure skating for awhile. I love the grace that comes with these sports, the control required, the strength, how easy it looks (but isn’t. At all).
I began taking aerial hoop (also known as lyra) classes a few years ago. Some of my ballet training and natural muscular build came in handy, but I struggled with it on and off due to some balance issues related to my vision and some overcompensating that caused other issues with my cervical spine due to having limited mobility in my shoulders. I had to keep stopping and starting classes, and I haven’t been back since I had surgery on my neck, sadly. But I hope to go back to it once I’m settled in Victoria. If ever there was a good time, it would be when I’m surrounded by other soon-to-be physical therapists.
I’ve never been skinny, I’ve always been muscular and had an athletic physique. Both of my parents are quite athletic as well, and I think that’s saved me in some ways. A lot of people who have EDS become deconditioned because of their mobility issues, and very often end up with poor muscle tone, and relegated to using wheelchairs and other mobility devices. A lot of people have a rough time pushing through the pain and staying active because of the issues with their joints. Thankfully, I never had any serious kinds of dislocations, subluxations or really had hypermobility in the majority of my joints, with the exception of my hips and cervical spine. Some of that is because I have always been muscular and athletic and have built strength around some of the joints that helped to keep them stable. Unfortunately that also meant growing a system of extremely tight fascia.
If you’ve ever cut up a chicken breast, that white stuff around the muscle is fascia. It surrounds your muscles, organs, and joints. It’s basically everywhere in your body and just holds it all together. Until more recently, it was thought that fascia was just connective tissue and didn’t have much going on, but researchers have more recently begun to understand how connected fascia is to the nervous system, and how tension in the body isn’t always tension in the muscles, but rather in the fascia itself, which can cause a lot of chronic pain in the body.
This is what I’m interested in, and want to study further in school. Too many people live in chronic and endless relenting pain that doesn’t need surgery, or a lifetime of pain killers – sometimes the body needs simple adjustments, it needs some help healing itself, but the body naturally wants to fix itself.
I scooted back to my hotel, my last night in San Francisco before flying home to Seattle, and then back to the trail. My Garmin training readiness score is 98 out of 100. My body battery fully charged. Sometimes we need to sleep, to eat good food, and sometimes we need to recharge our soul.
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