Miles: 1425.1 | A late start with coffee and hometown bagels leads back to trail under heavy heat and full packs. A blue blaze detour to Canopus Lake Beach brings water, a rare swim, and much-needed rest—but a falling branch snaps the day short. Shaken, sore, and low on motivation, we choose an early stop and camp near the lake, trading miles for recovery and an early night.
In the morning we got up late. Parakeet made us coffee and we ate some bagels from Big Dave's Bagels that my parents had brought us from home. I had so much food that I had to strap the bag of bagels to the outside of my pack! It was heavy. We asked Parakeet how she had dealt with the bugs on trail and she offered us some Cedarwood Oil. She said the pure Cedarwood Oil kept mosquitoes and ticks at bay but she had yet to find something that worked on gnats. We gratefully took the remedy in an aluminum spray bottle back to trail with us. She dropped us off around noon and we promised to keep in touch.
Back on trail we began walking around Canopus Lake. It was hot, I was tired, and my food bag was very full. There was no water nearby on trail except for the steep downhill to the lake. We saw a sign that stated that the campsite we were aiming for no longer had water because of a drought and that we would need to get water at Canopus Lake Beach's park.
We took the quarter mile blue blaze down to the beach. It was weird to be at the beach in all of our hiking clothes! We went and got water, which we had to get specially in the snack stand because their tap water had high levels of sodium. We sat on the beach, waiting out the height of the sun, and ate some of our abundance of food. We treated ourselves to some special freeze dried ice cream that Miles' mom had sent us (thank you!).
Miles and I decided to take a quick swim. Neither of us liked swimming much, nor were we very good at it, but we thought it would be a good way to finally cool off. We went for a short dip. The locals around us were noisy and rambunctious. It was difficult to stay in the water for long because the teenagers around us ran into us so many times.
After our swim, we sat in Miles' foam Therm-A-Rest on the beach and dried ourselves out in the sun. Later, I lay under a tree at the edge of the beach near a picnic table napping. The wind blew a few times and I didn't think anything of it. All of a sudden, I heard a loud crashing noise. I looked up and saw a branch falling through the branches of the trees around it. Straight for my legs.
I immediately leapt up from where I was laying and tried to run away from the falling branch. I tripped and hit my knee in the process but made it safely away from the branch when it fell. Just inches from where I was laying, the branch landed with a loud thud. Tears welled in my eyes immediately, a natural fear reaction. My knee throbbed from the impact on the nearby rock. Miles and I sat and stared at each other in shock. I never thought to check for widow makers while just taking a nap on a beach!
I sat and nursed my knee for a few minutes. The pain shot through my leg for a good bit. By now it was 3pm. I really didn't want to hike anymore. Was it the pain in my knee, the heat, homesickness? I don't know. I just lost all motivation after that.
I went and filled both my water bottles back up, thinking we were leaving. When I came back Miles suggested we didn't have to leave. Maybe we could just camp here and get up early. We decided to do that and we went and found the path to the tenting area. A big field, another dewy night was ahead of us.
We set up next to each other and went to bed early, hoping to wake up early as well.