Another Long Walk: Day 23: Donuts on the mind!

June 22: Today was a zero day, so Blueberry and I both slept in late. Eventually we got up, but we were in no rush.

We asked the proprietor of the hostel, Jeremy, if he planned on going into Grand Marais today and, if so, if we could get a ride from him. He was, and didn't have a problem with it, so when he was ready to go into town, we jumped in his vehicle and rode into town.

We didn't have a ride back out of town--it was probably a good 10 miles from Grand Marais to the hostel and definitely not something Blueberry and I wanted to walk--but we figured we'd hitch a ride back to the hostel. It didn't seem like it would be difficult, but Jeremy said to give him a call if for some reason that didn't work out.

Our first stop in town was to grab some World's Best Donuts. I capitalize "World's Best" because that's the actual name of the donut place: World's Best Donuts. The town might be small, but their ambitions are big! I got the donut kabob, and while it was delicious, I'm not entirely convinced that it really is the world's best.

Blueberry was very interested in eating the World's Best Donuts. *nodding*

We walked around town a bit and along the waterfront, admiring the sites. It's a beautiful area.

When we were done walking around and looking, we headed to the grocery store to buy food for the rest of our hike, which we expected to finish in four or five days.

After taking care of that business, we headed to Sven & Ole's Pizza for lunch. We both ordered a couple of slices of the uffda pizza--how can you not order something called an "uffda". (Although I did ask what it was before I committed it. Minnesotans have their own language!)

After lunch, Blueberry decided to hitch back to the hostel, but I stayed in town and went to the library. I had more work to do online, but I had to be in town to ship my laptop to the next post office, so I spent a couple of hours working on my laptop in the library.

The post office closed at 4:00, though, so by around 3:30 I closed it up and called it a day. I walked to the post office and mailed my laptop to the post office in Duluth. I wouldn't pick it up again until I was done with the trail.

There was nothing else keeping me in Grand Marais anymore, but before I left, I walked over to Dairy Queen and got a strawberry sundae before walking to the edge of town and sticking out my thumb for a ride.

I was picked up after about two minutes--awesome!

This ride got me to the turnoff for the hostel, which was a couple of miles up the road. I didn't mind walking a couple of miles on a quiet, gravel road--although I wasn't excited about the prospect either. I knew I'd be at the hostel in less than an hour if I started walking, though, so I started walking.

I had walked for about 5 minutes when I heard a car approaching from behind me. I turned around and stuck out my thumb. No reason not to try?! And the driver came to a stop. He didn't pull over per se--there wasn't enough room on the road to "pull over", but he stopped and I jumped into the front seat and road the rest of the way in style to the hostel. Very very quick, very easy hitches!

Early in the evening, nobody seemed interested in building a fire, but Nula and I wanted to roast the leftover marshmallows from the night before so we headed to the campfire ring where I set up my stove and we roasted marshmallows over the stove. It was faster and easier than building a wood fire. =) Nula was fascinated with the soda can stove, never having seen one before and wanted to know everything about it. Maybe make some herself to sell. I told her that I didn't think she could sell them for enough money to make it worth her while, but wished her luck if she decided to try it anyhow.

I also gave her a rousing recital of The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill around the soda can campfire. Then we headed back to the bunkhouse, where Blueberry had already gone to sleep, and I called it a night. Another rough day on the trail came to an end!