Diaries of Big Bend Backpacking: Day II

February 15, 2020

Hiking socks make my calves look fat! It’s a seriously not cute overall look for my short legs. The hiking boots do not help. All clunky and chunky – my entire legs look stubby. There’s a fly that really likes sitting on my socks and watching me write. I haven’t showered in two days which isn’t much expect for the harsh sweating I did yesterday. We forgot deodorant so we’re trying our best not to lift our arms above our heads. Camping and hiking isn’t always pretty.

We returned to camp last night to find a handwritten note in our bear box. For a moment, I smiled, thinking it may be a random act of Valentine’s Day kindness. It wasn’t. It turns out that someone else also had our campsite booked. They wrote a note on their reservations sheet for us.

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I wish that I had left our permit out (with the campsite number booked and written in by Ranger Jason) so that they could have seen that the site was double booked but it sat inside my bag in the bear box out of view. The couple assumed we either didn’t have reservations or accidentally took the wrong site. Regardless, while we were enjoying our Valentine’s celebration out at the South Rim until dark, eating dinner and chocolate, casually making our way back the two miles to our campsite this unfortunate couple made the decision to hike over six miles back to the parking lot. Though I know that it’s not our fault, it bugs me that they think it is and that their Valentine’s Day was ruined. The reservation slip they left has a permit number on it and I hope we or the park services can reach out to them and explain the double-booking. I certainly would have shared the campsite if they had stayed…(UPDATE: after speaking with park volunteers, I found out that Big Bend has a brand new website launched in February for booking backcountry campsites and there were several incidents of double-bookings and other issues occurring because of it).

We had a windy, cold night but stayed cozy and warm inside our down sleeping bags. We didn’t set alarms and instead woke when the sun came up. About ten hours of sleep rejuvenated our tired bodies. A small cup of cold coffee protein shake, a bag of coconut and dried blueberry oatmeal (with powdered milk and water), and a gorgeous sunrise over the canyon left us feeling reset and ready for a new day.

It’s our dating anniversary today. Eight years ago today, Jon and I decided to finally go on a date to a normal New London restaurant to try going from being friends to being in a relationship. Honestly, our first date wasn’t very memorable. We were already good friends and it was like going to dinner with your best friend. We sat on the steps of his freshman year dorm afterwards until partiers started to interrupt our chatting. He kissed me goodnight and I walked back to my dorm with some friends. It wasn’t until our fourth date that we felt the “big click”. We refer to it as “the perfect date” but in reality it was just a good example of how we work. Playful, goofy, we were teenagers then and inspired childlike fun in one another. We built a fort out of blankets in my dorm room, shared our favorite music, watched a movie, and shared delivery food with my roommates. Somehow we still have this goofy fun together and camping can still feel like that makeshift college date.

Jon is working on his watercolor paintings again. We’re back on the South Rim at 10am. I’m still thinking about the couple who had the double-booked reservation and hoping that they turned out alright last night. I try to focus on Jon’s painting technique instead. He always surprises me with how talented of an artist he is. Watching him makes me want to paint too. I miss my acrylics and oil painting but I’m glad I’m exploring writing more now too. It’s strange feeling words spilling out and letting my first thoughts hit the paper without much reservation. Graduate school drained most of my artistic energy. It took me over a year to get into reading again and when I did, I wanted only to read books for fun. I’m so glad that happened because I have greatly enjoyed a series of somewhat connected books about outdoors adventures. Those books in a way gave rise to this trip and my new voice for writing. Though graduate school was not a very pleasant experience, I am grateful for having found more of who I am and begun a process of detaching myself from who I thought I needed to be or who I was told to be. I certainly do not know yet what to do with that or where to go from here but in the moment it feels great.