Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Mission: Accomplished!

You know you’re having a good day when your least favorite part of it is walking down a butterfly-and-sunlight strewn trail. Granted, it’s also mile 75 in four days and your body is staging a coup de tat to replace you with a hopefully less adventure-inclined counterpart.

While toward the end it might have gotten a bit questionable, WE DID IT!!!!!!! 4 days, 77 miles coast to coast, moonlight over Loch Ness, going a bit nuts, being grateful for ferns, story time, lots of pictures, miles of too-gorgeous trail, too much medi tape, some elephant ears, and a pair of crutches later...MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

Maybe a little worse for wear, but definitely intact upon arrival in Inverness! I definitely couldn’t have made it alone, Blake and I carried each other through (sometimes literally) to the very end of the line. Unfortunately, on the train ride back my ankles decided to make good on their threat of revolt and officially went on strike. After walking off the train my left ankle completely gave out with the other not far behind. Thankfully, health care is FREE in Scotland and twenty minutes at the hospital, a host of pain meds, and a pair of crutches later I was diagnosed with some pretty angry tendons that will soon (hopefully) heal themselves.

It’s a strange feeling, making a dream come true. Surreal, still reeling when my brain wraps my head around the fact that we LITERALLY WALKED ACROSS A COUNTRY. I couldn’t have done it alone, that’s for sure. The one thing I do know is that this is only the beginning. Where to next? Who knows. But big things are definitely on the horizon.

Pictures tell this story better than I ever could:

Day 1: All strapped up and ready to go! If only we knew what was coming....

Break time on the canal

Hitting the trail by Loch Lochy

Loch Oich, almost too gorgeous to be real

Medical tape--the key to happiness on long hikes. Pretty sure it was what kept my feet together.

Mile 36: Already ready for the loony bin

Trail overlook Loch Ness

That moment when you stop in your tracks because the scene you're looking at couldn't possibly be real.

Day 5: I'm a gimp! SO WORTH IT.

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