Things got icy overnight. I could tell because I wasn’t sleeping. My fault…

I woke up having to pee, as usually happens at least once a night out here, and I blearily look at my phone and see it’s 3 something. I get back in the tent, cocoon myself up once again, and don’t get back to sleep. I decided I might as well get up and have some coffee and start writing. These days my writing and coffee process can take upwards of three hours. I’ll write, lay back down for a while, have another cup of coffee, nap, write, eat some oatmeal, etc. It’s a really luxurious and drawn-out process at 4am in my tent, so getting started earlier isn’t necessarily crazy, I might just have longer to nap before the hiking starts.

I made my coffee and started writing when I looked at the time on my phone again: 23:00. That wasn’t a 3. It was a 23!  Nooooooooooo. I’m one of those people who likes to keep their clocks on military time…so 23 was 11pm, I had already consumed about half of my very stong cup of coffee. Doh.

I tried to sleep more. I really did, but the coffee was running through my body, waking things up. My water bottles were getting icy, too. Maybe I could have ignored the deeper chill in the air if I had stayed asleep, but now I was cognizant of the dropping temps and was missing my bigger down coat and down booties. Why, oh, why didn’t I throw them in???

But one benefit of getting up in the middle of the night was seeing my progress for the first time. There were lights on the horizon! So far, there has been no light and no humans out in the desert. I was getting somewhere!

Back to the night. I made it through, but knew I would be dragging today.

I walk, I wander, I plod along the dirt roads. It really is warmer today, and I don’t need all my layers on to walk, just half of them, which feels quite wonderful. I have another trip and hike coming up soon, this time in the southwest, and I spend some time daydreaming about how warm it’s going to be down there. Visions of sweat and sunburn dance through my head….soon, hopefully!

I cross over the main road that Dennis and I drove in on almost a week ago, and I’m officially in the last bit of my section hike. The next few miles will be through the Sayler Creek Air Force Range, where planes practice things, then the route dips into the Snake River Birds of Prey Area. Some planes play overhead most of the afternoon, and I wonder if I have become part of their training exercises. Spot the hiker, track the hiker? There is nothing to hide me from their sights.

I start down the very gradual old road that will bring me to the fertile Snake River valley south of Hammett. I’ll have a quick 15-mile hike to my car tomorrow. I don’t want to camp too close, cause people and private land, cars and lights, so I hang back and almost finish the book I’m reading before the light dims and the 3am start feels so heavy on my eyes.