Day 9- All Kinds of Crazy.

Morning
I'm stalling.  It's 8:20am and I've been up for more then an hour and a half.  It's cold and wet and everything I have is soaked.  I don't know how to pack it all up and I have a full day of hiking to do- I have to go.

Today is the first day I wish I wasn't doing this.  But I am and I have to persevere.  F***- everything stinks like sweat and filth.  It's horrible.  Where the f*** is the sun?'

Evening
I've never truly known the meaning of the word 'exhaustion': I write this at 8:30pm- too tired to make a fire (used stove) and too tired to write coherently- like my mind is currently operating, this will be pieces of thoughts, mere fragments.

1. The woods are daunting and it's enough to break any man's spirit.  You cannot tell how much further it is to your destination, .5km or 5km because its just an endless sea (or rather, forest) of trees.

2. I almost started crying today and I gave up.  I dropped my pack and started shaking of exhaustion.  My body was racked with pain and I was starting to get 'crazy' (talking to yourself, hearing strange noises, etc).  I ended up being 8 minutes from the site when it happened.

3. After I dropped my pack and started walking without it.  I had completely given up.  I ended up finding my site a few minutes away and the only way I was able to get there was by reciting the marching song from "Full Metal Jacket" (This is my riffle this is my gun, this if for fighting this is for fun...), doing sound-offs with myself and counting to 600.  Yes, it got crazy.

4. What I'm proud of though, and no one can take this away from me, is that I did it.  Any maybe it wasn't the most orthodox method but I did it right- pack on back, camp set up, bowls and pots cleaned- food hung so it won't attract bears, tarp up in case of rain... etc.  I did it.

I DID IT!

Oh, and I saw an otter today and some people (Mark and Simon).  I got some great shots of a frog by walking really really slowly (8 minutes!).

I need to sleep.
Ben
p.s.
A few nights ago I spent almost half an hour watching a snapping turtle swim around.  It was amazing.