SUMMARY:  We had a great zero day today, and when we went for lunch to the Chinese buffet we joined a tableful of other thruhikers.  Of course they asked, “When did you start?”  and when we told them “April 30”, they rolled their eyes and said, “What did you do–RUN here??”  Well, we didn’t run, but we did keep walking a lot.  So what did our zero look like?  Sleep in, eat big breakfast, do laundry, pick up resupply box, lunch at the buffet, do the mending, load food bags, take a nap, finish the journal, eat dinner, go to bed.

DETAILS:  We seriously needed a zero today–we are so tired.  We’ve been pushing it a lot–maybe too much–and proof positive came at lunchtime today. We went to the Chinese buffet.  Buffet ANYTHING is going to be a thruhiker magnet, and this was no exception.  We walked in and were standing there looking around when we heard a call from one of the tables– “Are you CDT?  C’mon over and sit at the hiker table!”

So we joined 4 other CDT’ers and of course one of the first questions they asked was “When did you start?”  We told them “April 30”, and all their jaws dropped.  “Seriously?” they said.  “What’d you do–RUN?”  Turned out that all of them had started a week or more before we did.  But where we basically did a series of pit stops in town, they had done neros or even zeros.

Of course we all had fun telling trail tales….only I think for the CDT, it’s more like war stories.  Everyone has concluded that this trail is beyond tough:  it’s brutal.  But there in the Chinese restaurant, all our aches and stress faded as we laughed together and ate and ate and ate.

Since we didn’t do any miles today at all, I thought I’d do a little description of the anatomy of a zero day.  It goes something like this:

1. Slept in till 7:30.  At that point we were starving hungry and had to get up and go eat.
2. Went to Denny’s and had a Lumberjack Slam each.
3. Went shopping at Walmart to get another umbrella for Fixit (he lost his already)
4. Go back to motel and tackle laundry.  Begin by prewashing filthy socks in the wastebasket, then off to the laundry room, where I discovered they have no soap for sale.  Had to go to Walgreens for soap and come back.  Since I was only doing one load, that meant a lot of soap left over.  Oh well.
5. While laundry was going, went back to motel room and cleaned/reorganized my pack plus finished writing yesterday’s journal.
6. Went out front to sit on curb and wait for trail angel Carol Mumm to come along with our resupply box.  Was joined by fellow CDT’ers Half Mile (Yes!  THE Half Mile!! Great to meet him in person!) and Afloat.  Carol Mumm soon arrived and told us some hair raising and awful stories about how she and Hugo were being harassed and even threatened by the BLM for the “crime” of putting out water caches along the trail for the hikers.  Unbelievable!   Our tax dollars at work to make life miserable.  I guess the BLM guys south of Grants are nice, but to the north it’s another story.
7. Go to the Chinese buffet for lunch.  Hang out with the hikers and relax.
8. Fixit found a small towel lying by the road.  He wanted me to make a couple of even smaller towels out of it.  So I cut it in half and hemmed up 2 little towels.
9. Naptime.
10. Write down today’s journal.   Load food bags and packs.
11. Go to Denny’s for dinner.
12. Crash.