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PCT Day 6

Start: 1433.9

Stop: 1445.4

Today’s miles: 11.5

Total PCT miles: 64.3

I had big plans for today. I was going to wake up early, crush this snow, make some miles, be brave! Damn, I’m funny. If only I knew what today had in store for me.


I actually slept incredibly well on my slanted spot near all the snow. Especially for being so paranoid once it got dark.. I drifted off before 10pm and woke up a little after midnight to the sound of rain tap tap tapping on my tent.. when I woke up for this rain-my face was smooshed into the mesh side panels of my tent. Like so smooshed it took me a second to realize why I couldn’t open my eyes! And I had drool everywhere! LOL I guess my sleeping pad slid a little during those two hours and I was just knocked out cold. Worth it.


I quickly checked and made sure everything was dry (I’ve never had an issue with this tent, except for the condensation in the mornings from my hot breath all night, but I’m still paranoid after that one tent I had on the AT allowed a little river to come right through the middle of it.). I was back to sleep the second my face was back down, although I did scoot the pad back to where it should have been.


My watch alarm vibrated at 5:30. I actually giggled. Yeah right am I getting up at 5:30 in the wet, damp morning when the birds aren’t even up yet! I took my synthroid and fell back to sleep. An hour later, I finally got moving-but slowly. It was cold. Not like freezing cold, but definitely like I want to eat my oatmeal snuggled in my quilt cold. So I got up, got my food bag (I also peed & cleaned my hands), and came back to bed to make my oatmeal and coffee.


I was finally packed and on snow-I mean trail by 7:40. I had my microspikes on and made my way through the not so fluffy white stuff. I ended up taking them off after maybe 30 minutes in them. Everything I was crossing, while frequent, wasn’t hard to balance on as long as I used my trekking poles.. and when I did get back to solid ground, the microspikes hurt my feet a little. So, I took them off and at times felt like I was skating and other times I thought to myself I am an absolute moron and should have left them on.


It was slow moving, a lot of the snow underneath the massive piles I was walking on had started melting and making little streams, it was difficult at first to figure out what was safe to walk on, what definitely wasn’t, and all of the questionable variables in between. At some point I gained confidence, especially when I picked up other people’s footprints. I thanked God for them all day today, even when they led me astray.
There were many moments where I’d stop and look around, then freak myself out because I was just utterly surrounded by the snow, and if I didn’t have my app to follow or those footlprints, it would be so easy to get very very lost out here. I haven’t laid eyes on another human all day. It’s a little unnerving.


Sometime between 11-1 I went through a logging area, it looked awful and it was hard to maneuver over and around all the accidental or purposeful fallen trees. It looked like a place to buy wood chips by the truckload. But, also surrounded by snow. And no people buying or selling wood chips. Ha.


I decided to sit on one of the purposefully cut tree stumps for lunch around noon. As I was pulling out my bagel to make a sandwich, it started sprinkling. I shoved everything in (after pulling out a snack to stick in my Fanny pack-sour patch kids from Jennifer Kilgo!) put on my rain cover and got out my umbrella. Minutes after I started walking again-the sky fell out and decided to dump hail on me for a good 20-30 minutes. Thankfully there wasn’t much snow to navigate at this point.


Around 1 the rain stopped, so I found another stump. Thankfully the sun was shining again too. I ate my lunch while my tent, socks, and shoes all sat drying out in the sunshine. It wasn’t the prettiest views, but I was happy and honestly a bit proud of myself for making it through this type of terrain. I’ve never hiked through snow like this, unless you count when I walked down a black diamond ski slope in Heavenly Ski Resort because the guy told me I was “required” to ski down it. This is way different though. While that guy was a jackass, and I was being stubborn as hell, he was at the very least required to keep me safe or he’d lose his job. I’m required to keep myself safe out here, or I could lose my life. Scary shit.


Anywho. In the afternoon the trail went over some ridge lines which were stunning. On my left, I could see mostly snow free valleys covered in trees surrounded by other mountains. To my right-tons of trees sloping down into a valley surround by nothing but snow. And water. Haha, every single turn my brain was like, “please don’t go back into that yet! Please!”


I was getting frustrated at how slow I was moving. Over the day I had slipped into the snow on my butt at least 5 times, the last time post-holing and losing my shoe, making me have to shove my hand in the hole of branches and twigs to find it. As the day went on, the more likely it would be that I’d sink more and more when I walked through the white stuff.


Around 4pm, I turn a corner and see huge billowing storm clouds ahead. I keep walking and see that around that next bend, I’m back in snow. NO! I did not want to be caught in a storm in the snow with no idea when I’d get out of it again. You just don’t know, sometimes it’s less than a minute of quick walking, the next time it’s 20-30 minutes traversing a whole valley floor with seriously deep looking tree wells.


I turned around and spotted a decent-ish sort of flat spot by this chunk of snow and ice beside some trees. While I was pondering whether I should just set up shop right there, right now, and deal with all this crap tomorrow.. thunder tumbled through. Ok, noted. It was 4:13. I dropped my stuff and started setting up my tent. The thunder continued and then I could hear the wind. That was terrifying. I knew rain would be coming any second so even before I finished staking it all out correctly, I pushed my pack inside the tent, then finished feverishly working to make sure it was staked well enough in this soft ground to hopefully weather whatever storm was coming for me.


I leapt inside by 4:18, shoes off.. and at 4:21 the first rain drops started their decent. I’ve slowly started unpacking. My pad is up and my warmer clothes are on. I’m actually pretty chilled and my legs look cut to shreds thanks to the overgrown trail. I’m not hungry yet though, which is a little concerning. I am super tired, so I’m considering skipping dinner and getting some shut eye now, with the rain, and maybe I’ll sleep through anything worse coming my way. I haven’t seen lightening, but it’s been over an hour and the thunder is still rumbling. The rain is a soft pitter patter and I don’t hear the wind like I did.


Who knows. Maybe I’ll wait a bit and eat dinner sometime closer to 7 to help break it up a little. Otherwise I might be wide awake at 3am and I know I’m too chicken shit to go hike in the dark in the snow alone, hahaha, so if I did, I’d just lay here waiting for 5am to roll around. Part of me thinks I should just eat to make the pack lighter, because that is the smartest thing to do, replace calories, have a warm belly when you’re cold, lighten the load. But I’m just not feeling it right now.


Alright, until tomorrow I guess, unless I get fidgety and think of more things to ramble on about. Goodnight!

EuroTrip: Days 38-44-Malta + Heading Home

We got a taxi to drop us off at the train station by 8am on Sunday to catch the shuttle bus to the Naples airport. It all went off without a hitch. The bus ride was a nice 1 and a half hour tour along the hilly coast on a coach bus.. with air conditioning. All for €10 each. We arrived at the airport by 10am and checked in.


The flight to Malta was less than 2 hours. We had to show our covid test results at their passport control, and then we had a ride arranged to the hotel. Literally from the time we walked off the plane to the time we got in the car, a whole 9 minutes had passed-total. It was impressive.
The hotel has more of a resort feel to it. 5 pools, 9 restaurants, a spa and a gym, plus beach access. We were right on the bay and everything was beautiful. During our 4 days there, we literally swam at the pools, laid in the sun, sipped drinks and ate food. We’d leave the resort every evening for dinner some where else, but honestly, we just wanted to relax and take it easy.


We didn’t do any excursions or tours, while I would have enjoyed exploring this country more, we just needed the relaxation time. Mom even scheduled me a 90 minute massage on our last full day.. incredible, and so appreciated.
I did end up having my second best meal in Malta. A lobster risotto that at first I was terrified of. They put the whole thing on top of the risotto. Little beady eyes and all.. but when I flipped him over, all the meat was already falling off.. perfect! No work required at all! Just like I like it. It ended up being so dang delicious!


On our second night we liked the food so much at this one restaurant, that we came back the 3rd night after going somewhere else first and deciding we’d rather our last dinner be back at the other place instead. Eh, we like what we like!I did get different meals though, the first one was spaghetti carbonara.. delicious, the next night was-you guessed it, risotto. Believe it or not, I still wanna eat at Mezza Luna when I get back home.. maybe *after* I lose the 15-95 pounds of pasta and bread weight I’ve gained this last 6 weeks..

On Thursday morning, we ate room service breakfast (smoked salmon and eggs on toast for me) and then packed up our stuff. We took a taxi to the airport around 12:30, and the cabbie let me have my Prosecco in a to go cup in his car, lol. I couldn’t chug it and he got there so fast. We boarded our flight to Paris and found it funny that no one seemed to check anything or ask any questions at any of these gates.


I was happy I decided to book us a night in Paris instead of trying to make a close connecting flight the same day to NYC, because our flight ran long, we didn’t land until 6:30 and the flight to NYC leaves daily at 6:45pm.. AND we still had to take our proctored covid tests to get back into the states. We got off our flight, went through customs and took the tram 3 stops and got off right in front of our hotel.


We checked in, did our covid tests-got negative results, and then went to have dinner in the restaurant attached to the hotel. The hotel is very nice and set up almost like a destination in itself. There was the restaurant and bar, plus tons of lounging spaces. We ended up watching a movie in our room until after 1am.. then slept in.
With our flight being at 6:45pm, we lounged in the room until check out, at noon, then had lunch in the restaurant. While I ran, and then proceeded to just walk around awhile to get my steps, mom relaxed in the lounge. At 3, we made our way back to the tram and to the airport. It was good that we got there early, because the lines for the baggage drop were nuts.. thankfully security was a breeze.


Our flight was 8 hours long, and it felt like 45 years. I watched movies, I read, I tried and failed to sleep. When I finally did-they turned the lights on and announced (in French and then English) that the flight attendants were coming through the aisles with perfumes and other things for sale.. for a good deal.. talk about irritating. Otherwise, it really was a comfortable flight, just long.


We time traveled backwards during this flight, so while we left at 6:45pm, we landed in Newark New Jersey at 9pm the same day. Weird.. it was 3am to us but the sun was still out. We went through all the customs and stuff, got our luggage, got a Lyft and made it to the hotel for the night.. by 10:30pm. I tried to door dash Taco Bell (because for some unknown reason, I love that stupid crap food), but my order got canceled. Heartbreak. So, we got food from the restaurant at the hotel before they closed and ate it in the room.. I passed out shortly there after.
When we woke up this morning, we showered and basked in the glory of large American showers and the perfection of fluffy full sized beds. Ridiculous, yes, but it’s nice to miss “home.”

We ate chic fil a for breakfast and took the shuttle to the airport. Now, I’m sitting on my delta flight to atlanta-our 44 day European adventure now coming to an end. It feels so surreal. I really can’t believe all of the places we’ve seen and all of the experiences we’ve had. It has been so magical, and to share all of these memories with my favorite person on top of that, it’s priceless. Mom and I will surely remanence over this trip for the rest of our lives, even after we make new memories in new places.


I know Covid took its toll on all of us, but I’m also grateful that I was able to have something wonderful come out of something so tragic. In 2020 I worked my ass off fighting to save lives of those suffering from this contagion.. and because I was working so much in hot spots across the country, I saved my money. I completed my dream of hiking the Appalachian trail last year, and now I can say I completed my other dream of taking my mom on the trip of a lifetime. I’ll never take having her here with me for granted. (And now, I need to take my butt back to work, as my puny savings account keeps reminding me).

Anyway, I think that’s all for now. My next post will have the breakdown and information of our itinerary.. probably in the next few days or so. Haha. Time to get home and enjoy being with family, friends, and that boyfriend I get to call mine 😉

EuroTrip: Day 37-Sorrento Beaches


Ahhh, what sweet sweet bliss it is to sleep in! My God it was lovely! We didn’t wake up until close to 11am! And I loved every second that I snoozed. After breakfast we got in our bathing suits and coverups, snagged our new Amalfi beach towels and our sunscreen and started the walk to the “beach.”


It was another scorcher of a day, and the heat and hills were starting to get to mom. When we got to the top of the main hill our apartment is on, we had to walk down to the area that has the steep slopes all the way down the cliff side to where the beaches are below. It took maybe 20-30 minutes total, but we both looked like we had already gone swimming thanks to the heat, sunscreen, and sweat.


At the bottom, there are “beach resorts” that look like long piers out into the water, where you pay for a sun-bed or sun chair, with or without a mattress, and then you have a designated space on the pier.. you walk to the steps and swim out into the water from there, never being able to touch the sea floor. There are waiters to bring you food and drinks and then you can also pay for towels and umbrellas. The sun beds have sun visors attached to shield your face if you so choose. Pretty neat!


However, at first, we didn’t know about this. In between these “resorts” there are free beach spots, with small sandy stretches of beach and you walk into the water like normal. We walked down to a couple of these, and people were already packed in on their towels, so close that people had to have their knees bent-they literally didn’t have the room to stretch all the way out! Plus, because of the cliff jutting straight up directly behind the beaches, the sand was all in the shade already.


We ended up walking back to the resort place we first saw when we walked up. I asked for 2 sun beds. The man said they only had chairs. I said never mind, mom was getting irritated and he heard her say, “alright, let’s just go back to our marina beach, this is too much..” and the man told us to wait a minute and he’d try to find us sunbeds.


Within a couple minutes, he was ushering us past several other people waiting to our sun beds on the back part of the pier-in perfect view of the sun! It was glorious! We got settled and then quickly went to get into the water. It was the most perfect, refreshing temperature, without being too hot or too cold. We swam and laid out in the sun.. I drank Prosecco and read my book on my kindle (The Paper Palace, by the way..).. it was awesome.


I realized I lost service on the pier after I was messaging with Juan and Caro about meeting up on the beach area and getting lunch together. Here I thought I was telling them where we were and when we wanted to eat, and nothing had actually sent. Whoops. I got hit with messages when we were walking up the steps of the cliff around 4:45.. I felt so bad for missing them!

We had to hustle home and shower, to get ready for nose swabs and dinner. We made it to the pharmacy at a minute before 6pm, had our tests done by 6:15 and told to come back in 20 minutes to get the results and our travel paperwork. We went next door and had a drink at a cafe, to cool off some, then went back and got our negative results. During that 20 ish minutes, I was googling our apartment and other hotels in the area, just in case one of us was positive and we couldn’t fly to Malta tomorrow..


Thankfully that wasn’t the case-although mom and I both agree that Sorrento is our favorite location so far! After we had our paperwork tucked away, we walked to the lemon tree restaurant. We waited in line, and as we got closer and closer to the hostess, the views of the place just got prettier and prettier. When it was our turn, I was fully expecting a “we have no tables” from the man, but instead he told us to wait to the side. Less than 5 minutes later, we were sitting at a table with gorgeous lemon trees and a garden of flowers behind mom. It was stunning!


I ordered wine and seafood risotto, I know-I have a problem.. it’s just so flipping good! The seafood was shrimp and clams, and y’all-I don’t actually like clams-plus I had to pluck them out of their little shells, but it was actually really good and not too chewy. Mom got lasagna.. I asked our waiter if it was customary to put eggs and peas in the lasagna, and he told us it’s a Sorrento tradition, the boiled egg anyway, not the peas.. so her lasagna had an egg in it-but it was actually really good! She just picked the egg out.


After dinner we walked through the garden area of the restaurant taking pictures and being silly. We’d offer to take pictures of couples we saw trying to get decent selfies, too. It was so fun and so many laughs. From the garden we wondered the tiny roads for the last time, knowing we’d be leaving for Malta in the morning.. making sure to love every minute. We found a little shop selling purses and mom and I both found one we had to have-so ridiculous, but when in Sorrento!


On the way back towards the room, fireworks were going off! We watched the show from the top of the cliffs beside the pretty hotel we walk past everyday. When they were over, we carried on to the apartment. We poured glasses of wine to celebrate our last night here (not that mom drank more than a sip), and as I was about done pouring, more fireworks started from our marina!


We sipped our wine while watching on the terrace! It was the perfect ending to our time in Sorrento. I literally couldn’t have asked for it to have been any better, even with the terrible meal thrown in the mix. I truly think I’ll have to come back and spend more time here some day. Ah, I’m actually really sad to leave.