I had hardly slept...maybe 4 hours but i was still excited to get started. I thought the only way i could get rid of my fear of the unknown was by pushing forward into that very thing. The day was beautiful and warm and we walked through trails that once were railroads. It was full immersion into green.
I had originally thought that we would stop at a hotel in Gibraltar or Birdsboro, like Google Earth had shown me was there. But after we stopped in Gibraltar (the town that almost isn't a town) it started to become clear that there was nothing really ahead of us and Google Earth had randomly placed some hotels that may or may not have really existed. The people in the Turkey Hill Minit Mart weren't much help either and didn't even seem to know where they lived. This place was just one to pass through, not to linger and find anything out. People got in and out of their cars while we continued to sit at a picnic table and i continued to reach my breaking point of sleepiness, exhaustion, guilt and hopelessness. We called 411 and kept getting redirected to the wrong place. There was no car service, cab, public transit...nothing but our feet to take us to wherever we were going to spend the night. I was faced with exactly what I had asked for on this trip.
It became clear that the closest place for us to stay was off of the US422 highway and approximately 8 miles away. There was no place to camp so we had to walk to it. I felt like digging myself into a hole under the picnic table we sat at and disappearing. I knew i could make it but had to consider Christy and Tina and felt terrible for what i was inflicting on them. The whole operation seemed incredibly selfish and inconsiderate. I started to believe i was a horrible person who never considered how i might impact other people. When we started to walk, i couldn't help sobbing off an on and repeatedly apologizing for this terrible mistake i had made. Somehow it all translated to me that I hadn't planned enough and that all of this would have been preventable had i not been such an idiot.
We walked. We trudged. We took occasional breaks. When i reached the point that took us off the trail and on to the highway, i started to see that this was going to be possible. It reminded me of the times i've run half marathons and i'd be at mile 9 thinking i just wanted to stop but what's another 4 or 5 miles at that point? If i came that far, i needed to go all the way.
A euphoria came over me at that point. I had lost any sense of feeling defeated and incompetent and had switched gears into my mechanical self who just moved because my body could still move. Everything hurt under the weight of my 30lb pack but the simple act of walking seemed so basic and so possible that i became aware that eventually i would get there. There was nothing to worry about. And so i didn't. I stopped worrying.
We managed to get across the highway where there was an actual pedestrian signal next to a no-pedestrian sign. The large shoulder to the road gave us plenty of room to walk and we stepped over matted-down roadkill, socks, grasshoppers and plants. Randomly-placed historical markers sat on the edge of the road where no one but pedestrians on this US highway could read it. I imagined what devotion a driver would have to have in order to pull over to read these signs since it was impossible at 60MPH. The air was damp and green and the light was starting to dim. When we finally came over the hill and saw the sign to the hotel, i screamed in a huge sense of relief and gratitude—probably the most exhilarating moment of my life.
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