Never did rain hard. Didn't rain all the time either. Probably no more than seventy or eighty of the next hundred hours. And most of those hours were at night. Like to say it was no big deal but it was no happy time. Wasn't a sad one either. Just a minor misery. Like a never-ending hand pushing down ever so gently on my head.
The forrest above and ground cover at my feet were both near the peak of autumn color when I set off. Would've been spectacular in sunshine. Wasn't bad in the half light of dense overcast, drizzle and mist. Most of what I saw was framed by the visor of my ball cap and blinders of jacket hood. Back in the tunnel. Constantly absorbed in thought and slowly tiring of my sodden company. Then hit another layer of acceptance. It'd rain. I'd get wet. Walked through that open door and continued on. Once I accepted, I could relax. Oh yeah, I also tugged on a second layer of stockings. My wet feet soon'd become abraded feet without that forgiving extra layer. Had more socks waiting at my last re-supply.
Didn't take long for my world to soak through. Meals, clothes, shoes, feet, sleeping bag. Even the water in the lakes I camped beside was wetter than usual. Found myself jumping up and down every morning, lunch and supper to loosen the moss. Never'd thought to bring a razor. Never thought I'd grow orange lichens on my chin whiskers. Looked like a damned leprechaun, smelled like a dead carp. Yeah, I was not a pleasant presence to behold through any of the five senses on the last days of the hike. Odd though it may seem, low grade misery grew to be my friend. Came to relish the idiocy of what I was doing, the privacy of being hunkered in the solitude of movement and thought.
And those thoughts kept returning to Archie. Never had a child of my own. Don't know what it'd feel like. How I'd react to the responsibility. And on the flip side, Archie never had a father to speak of. Same boat, different lake. We'd had the best of each other without the emotional baggage. Years earlier, don't remember where, he'd said something to the effect that not having a father wasn't all that bad. 'Stead of having to deal with the mix of goods and bads of real flesh and blood he was able to make up the father he wanted from bits and pieces of the men he'd met in life or his reading. Probably no man like that anywhere but in his head. Don't know how he'd come to feel about himself when he had children of his own. Probably feel he'd fallen short in most every way.
Don't want to flatter myself but believe he might have seen me as being as close to his mental image as anyone. If so, the man in his mind sure wasn't the man in the back of the canoe, though I doubt it mattered. We took to each other pretty good. Filled holes in each other's lives for a week or more each year.
Not much to say over those last four days. Rained. Then rained more. Got tired of LRRP meals. Got so it was hard to choke 'em down. On the upside, they filled me up and were warm. What more did I want? Except maybe a garden fresh tomato. Or a banana. Maybe an orange.
On the short stretch of the Gunflint Trail a woman in a pickup truck slowed, stopped, rolled down her window and asked me if I wanted a lift. Said, "Sure. Tell me a joke." Got a stare then a laugh out of her. Guess I gave her a lift.
The thought of bagging the hike never entered my head. Not that I was bull-headed just that I knew it wouldn't feel right. Never been one to quit on something once I'd started. Besides, like I said, I was having a good time in a low key kind of way. Minnesota kind of way. Yeah, there's a book full of jokes about our attitude up here in the northland. Mostly founded on exaggeration of underlying truth. Seems we know life's based on balance and usually stays pretty close to the fulcrum. That it's raining today doesn't mean it'll be raining tomorrow. Or sunny for that matter. Life goes along its merry way doing what it has to do. With luck a man can catch onto the ride for his three score and ten. Take it as it comes and be ready for what's around the corner. Though it would be nice to have dry shoes.
Gave thoughts to what I'd do once I was home. Wood to split, shopping in town, maybe a last canoe trip. Then thought of the future. My yesterdays now far outnumbered my tomorrows. And how many of those tomorrows would be spent in good health? And how many would be spent in my cabin? All things a man doesn't want to deal with but knows he has no choice. Life calls the shots and doesn't much care how any one man feels about it. Simply put, I enjoyed my life and had no immediate intentions to move onto something new. Figured to put faith in my feelings and, as always, my dreams.
Sun came out for a few minutes on the bluffs above Rose Lake just past the falls. Almost did a jig for joy. Instead, simply enjoyed the moment of steam rising from my body. Still some color down below but the rain had done a job on the leaves. Mostly pine and spruce green with splashes of gold and crimson dancing off beneath roving cloud shadows to the Canadian horizon. 'Spose part of my joy was knowing I'd be home for supper the next evening. September'd already seen its days come and go. A fitting season for a man who was solidly in the fall of his life. But October's a good month too. Drops a few hints of summer here and there. And calls for long johns more often as the days pass.
Took my last break alongside the McFarland Road after it'd dropped the lake from view. Thank God it was still raining. Wouldn't have seemed fitting had the sun come out. Almost an insult. Been wet for four days and wanted to stay that way 'til I stripped the rotting clothes off my back.
Came to the conclusion as stood under the shower that warm water feels better than cold. And yeah, damn it, the rain stopped about the time I turned in the driveway. Got me laughing. Sometimes I think Mother Nature likes to play jokes on me. If so, she's got a great sense of humor.
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