After three weeks of more or less bed rest, I am moving back to The Trail. My wonderful Trail Angel Kathy drove me to the outfitter in Mt. Shasta City today where I picked up some supplies and got my trekking pole tips replaced. They were super nice and efficient – I can recommend The Fifth Season for your outfitter needs. Tomorrow Kathy will drive me back to where the trail crosses I-5 and I will head north into Castle Crags and she will head back home.

I was incredibly fortunate to have such a good friend to scoop me up and house me for three weeks while I limped around and couldn’t do all that much for myself. I also got to stay in the little cabin, which gave us a little space and was a nice quiet place to rest.

Yeah, there’s pretty much only room for a bed in there. But it was a nice bed.

Mostly, if I’m not sleeping, I hang out on the deck.

The last few days, once I was pain-free, I started to feel like I was on vacation, or something. My surface wound is almost completely healed. The last bad part was waiting for the vascular damage to heal. My foot would feel and look great when it was elevated, but when I put my foot on the ground my toe would swell up, turn purple, and start to hurt. That seems to have ended in the last 36 hours, so I should be good to go. I just wonder how much muscle and strength I lost sitting around for three weeks. My left calf is noticeably smaller than my right.

And I’ve had no air-conditioning for the last three weeks, so I hope I have built some tolerance to the heat. Looks like next week is going to be a hot one! If you remember all the fiddling I did with my shelter, I’m messing with it again. I sent my sleeping bag ahead to Ashland. I still have my long-johns and down jacket. I think I’ll be just fine.

So, I’m excited to get back on trail tomorrow and head into some new country. I’ve never hiked in Oregon at all and only in the Olympic Mountains in Washington. But the pictures I’ve seen look beautiful! I’ll post some of my own soon.