Day 39: back in Kanab

I had only seven or so miles to walk this morning, all roads. I got up at 5:30am, having slept pretty well even though I had to reinflate my sleeping pad twice. I packed up fast and had a few uneventful hours of walking, five miles on Highway 89A which was almost a ghost highway. For awhile I walked the yellow line right down the middle of the road. Just because I could. 

By 8:20 I was at the place I planned to hitch from, a good forty miles (more maybe) back to Kanab. It took me forty minutes to get a ride, but so few cars passed me at all. I got a ride with a local guy who runs pizza restaurants on the Navajo Reservation. He’s deeply involved in his church, passionate about his church-related work, and he filled the car with his stories about what he cares so deeply for. I love meeting people who love. Anything, so long as they do it for the love. 

He got me most of the way to Kanab. I had one pretty quick 10 mile connecting hitch and then I was back in town, a town that feels so much more familiar to me now than when I was dropped in the McDonalds parking lot a week ago by the good Samaritans who wanted to give me charity money. I got a room, and then I met up with Erin who mails her computer to herself. I was able to use her computer to fix my GPS problem, recover the missing data, and provide myself with a functioning device that I so hope will stay functional. I did laundry at the house of a friend of hers (who she is staying with in Kanab), hit the store, and spent the requisite hours uploading blog posts while eating raw salad greens from the box with my hands. 

I leave tomorrow for the Grand Canyon section. I am very excited. I am excited to see it, a place carved in the American consciousness that I’ve never been to before. I’m excited to maybe get a bit more space from the other Hayduke hikers (side note: there are seven Hayduke hikers in Kanab right now, seven! That’s probably a record high!), just to get that inside and outside emptiness of no one else around. I’m excited to see if the weather changes too much or just the right amount. I’m excited to know whether I’ll be able to land an easy hitch back out to my trail tomorrow. 

I’ll be eight days from here to Grand Canyon Village, my next resupply stop. A lot of exciting things I’ll share with you then!