Day 5 - A Zero-Day

walkingpeopleoutofpoverty.ca is the personal blog of Peter Thorpe, long-time Opportunity International Canada supporter and Walking People Out of Poverty founder. For Dan Murray’s blog and information on OIC, please click here.

Now and again, it is necessary to take a day off walking, and this is known as a Zero day. We hadn't planned on taking one for another 4-5 days but felt it was necessary due to the toll the heat had taken us. A Zero-day allows you to take a well-earned shower, do laundry, and generally relax from the grind of walking 15-20 miles per day.

A typical Zero looks like this:

Get up, meet the guys, and go for breakfast. Afterwards, we gather up everyone's dirty clothes and have them washed.

Next, we hunted down our food package, and this is where we were in for a big surprise. The tracking number provided by the Post Office showed a Tuesday delivery date, which was undoubtedly beyond the 5-day window the Post Office said it would take.

John wandered around the back of the store and reappeared triumphantly with our food parcel cradled in his arms. The US postal worker told John never to trust the tracking number, which usually is 2-3 days out.

The balance of our day was spent in replanning the miles we intend to walk each day.

Our final task was to return to John's room to distribute the food box items. We have reduced our weight drastically and cut some of the dinners in half. There were a lot of happy hikers when we took a box full of meals and snacks down to where they were assembling for dinner.

Unfortunately, Dan and John will have to leave the trail at Stehekin, which is about 80 miles short of the trail's end. I will miss them immensely.

There is an American called Woody, who hails from California who is joining us for the remainder of the trail. Once John and Don leave, Woody and I will push through the 80 miles or so to the border.

The planning took most of the afternoon, so we had an early dinner and called it a day.

We were all in bed by 8:00 pm, but unfortunately, I had a herd of elephants move in above me, and it was probably 10:00 pm before I fell asleep.

Unfortunately no photos today.