It was just as I was on the phone with my hubby saying goodnight that I started to hear the voices of my walking partner, L and her hubby, T, so I yelled out to them and they found their way to our tent. I handed the phone off to L so that she could say hello and good night before hanging up with him. Then displaying strength and energy I had no idea was there, I got up and helped L lay down plastic, stuff her air mattress into the tent and roll out her sleeping bag.
She had indeed brought extra plastic sheeting so we draped one sheet over the tent for extra protection against the rain that was supposed to fall that night. And she had plenty that could be tucked around the duffle bags to keep them dry as well. T had his own tent in the Crew area and after we all said goodnight, he went off to find his. L still hadn't hit the shower yet so she was collecting her stuff to do that when I started to crawl into my sleeping bag. The wind had picked up a good bit at that point and I dozed rather fitfully off and on as wind, rain and my tentmate's movements would bring me back to the here and now... The lights of the camp get shut off shortly after 9pm. It seemed like a very long time after that when I fell into a solid sleep. Then sometime before dawn, my bladder woke me up.
Bladder: I *REALLY* need to go.
Brain: But...it's raining really hard out there.
Bladder: Oh, but, I *REALLY* need to go.
Brain: Give it a few minutes, maybe the rain will slow down a bit at least.
Bladder: But...
Brain: Just give it a few minutes...
**Several minutes pass**
Bladder: I need to go and I need to go NOW!!!!!
Brain: OK Ok... let me find the rain poncho... **Get up, rummage around for poncho and shoes, find them, put them on... Off to the Porta-Potties**
Bladder: Aaaaaaaahhhh, thank you, thank you, thank you...
**Get out of Porta-Potties to find rain had stopped completely**
Brain: GAH! See!! If you had just waited a few more minutes.
Bladder: *stays conspiciously silent*
Fortunately it didn't take much to go back to sleep. L then surprised the heck of out me by being the first one up for the second day in a row. And despite the fact we were both up at 5:30am it was still almost 7:30 before we started on the route for the day. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but it had a lot to do with slow moving, savoring breakfast and just taking our time to get moving. But get moving we did and shortly before 7:30am we left camp to start the day's walk of 22.5 miles. The day would finally come to an end 11 hours later.
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