Day 87: Another Miserable Day!

June 2: It generally sprinkled the whole night and into the morning, with brief periods when the rain would stop giving me hope that it might be nice in the morning. The weather was toying with me, however, and the sprinkling never really stopped. I slept in late in the morning hoping it would lift, but it never did and--in fact--just became heavier as the morning progressed.

I didn't stop much on the trail today--it was too wet and miserable to stop. The rain continued until about 2:00 in the afternoon, then it became a light drizzle. Never a break, though!

I walked through the town of Port Clinton early in the afternoon, but it's a small town without much for services and I just passed through without even stopping. I didn't need to resupply so I didn't. I was a bit tempted to get a ride to nearly Hamburg to check out, what my guidebook informed me, was the "world's largest Cabela's." I've been to a few large Cabela's, and I had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that apparently, they weren't even the largest of the stores. But in the end, I didn't really need anything from there and it seemed like a hassle to get to Hamburg and back, so I skipped out on that as well.

Late in the day, I arrived at the shelter at Windsor Furnace, but it was already packed full when I arrived which annoyed me to no end. I didn't recognize any of the hikers in the shelter, and none of them passed me during the day. I suspected they had walked in from Port Clinton and they quit after a couple of hours of walking, and I was a bit angry they had filled up the shelter after such a short, easy day leaving no room for me who'd spent the entire day hiking 20 miles through the miserable weather.

It would now be my fourth consecutive night I'd be camping under my tarp in the rain, and I was positively sick of it. The one good thing I could say about it, however, was that I set up my tarp well away from the shelter and at least didn't have to crowd in with a bunch of strangers that I didn't really feel like spending time with. The campsite was a pleasant one--if it wasn't raining, I'd have even preferred it over the shelter!

I remembered this sign making me laugh during my first thru-hike in 2003, and it still makes me laugh today. Because really, who's brilliant idea was it to build a railroad in a wildlife sanctuary?! =)

With all of the rain, the rivers near Port Clinton were running full and fast! Here you can clearly see where two rivers merge, with the dirtier and muddy water in the foreground and the (slightly) cleaner, clearer water in the background.

I said I didn't stop in Port Clinton. I may have exaggerated a bit. I did stop long enough to take this photo! =)

The rivers were full and flowing fast!

The only respite from the rain all day was underneath this highway. The trail passes under it just past Port Clinton.

Dry ground! Dry ground! It was very loud with all of the highway traffic on the road above here, though.

Watch out for the slick rocks--they're very slippery!

Deer on the trail!