Soggy bottoms

The next morning, it was still raining. And now it was really raining, not just misting. Still, we had come all this way and I was looking forward to hiking. Plus, there's really not much else to do in the area.

As soon as we started our 8-mile hike, I remembered that I don't really like hiking. The rain got harder the entire time but honestly, I didn't mind it that much. I had an umbrella and a rain jacket and a sweet vape of completely legal Canada cannabis, so we enjoyed the sound and smell of summer rain and the fact that we had the whole trail entirely to ourselves.

Some parts of it were pretty foggy, which felt magical, though that meant the "lookout" point didn't offer much looking. And at the end, we reached the waterfall, which was beautiful and a good reminder that technically, I could be wetter. We had a really satisfying lunch of Ritz crackers, cheddar cheese, and meat sticks, and started our descent.

Pretty soon, the rain picked up even more and we technically could not have been wetter. My feet were squelching, my backpack was saturated and leaking water onto my butt, and my legs were really tired. We were two soggy marmots when we got back to the car.

As soon as we got back, we took hot showers, started cooking dinner and set up a fire in the wood burning stove in the kitchen shelter. I washed down some ibuprofen with a THC beverage in anticipation of the pain I had invited into my life by hiking 8 miles for the first time in a year. And honestly, that stove and that dinner REALLY hit the spot. We rotisseried ourselves for hours by the stove, letting the heat soothe our aching backs, hips, and feet. After eating our local sundried tomato sausages with tender potatoes, onions, and peppers, we toasted muffins and topped them with generous pats of Nova Scotia sea salt butter. We also finished off our berries with cream, and they were even better than the peaches, so tart and juicy.

The day was full of highs and lows. It felt a lot like a bike trip, to be honest, and I loved that. As they say in Bulgaria, it can't all be yogurt and roses, but it can still be pretty great.Read more