The second day was a tough day. I’d tied my new shoes too tightly the day before, and my heels were sore when I woke up. The wind was whistling, and it was properly cold when we pulled into the trailhead spot we’d left the evening before. The spot was close to a farm, and felt very homey in the slanting evening sun. Now, an hour before dawn, it was cold and mysterious under the glittering stars. Allison walked the first 45 minutes of the day with me, and when she turned around it made the dark even more lonesome. Alone, I realized I had none of the feelings of being a ghost that always accompanied my pre-dawn walking. Maybe you are only a ghost when there is someone else to see you. Or maybe when you’re alone you truly are a ghost. Just before dawn, a collection of owls began an unearthly and very spooky conversation just off the trail.
My goal wasn’t the stopping point 30 miles away, but the town of Osage City, about 10 miles into the day. We’d driven through it in the dark twice now, and I knew there were several options for grabbing food and water. Having a stop like this offers relief that is tough to explain. In this case, the relief was from the unrelenting sameness of the trail. What had started as a walk in alien and epic scenery had become a walk down a tunnel of leafless trees with the occasional break looking over a harvested corn field. I am partial to prairie walking, but the scenery can get monotonous after dozens of miles.
I began listening to a book, the Gnostic Gospels. I said previously that this trail’s story could have been summed up as a solitary walk with raptors. I would add an asterisk to that with the note “while thinking about the Gnostics.” I selected this book for unrelated reasons, but it ended up being woven into the fabric of my second day on trail. It was nearly 8 hours long, and I listened to all but the last few minutes while walking this middle section of the trail.
The Gnostics were, perhaps above all else, people who believed that we ought to spend as much time as possible learning what is inside of us. One of the most famous quotes to come from the discovery of these books is "If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” Walking a hundred miles alone is nothing if not a good space in which to bring forth that which is within a person, to say the very least. Under the massive skies, it’s almost inevitable. Also, this was the sort of place where something you’d forgotten to bring forth (perhaps intentionally) could really start to make your life difficult, if not destroy you.
Osage City was a bust. The last mile or two of trail into town degraded in spots until it was just ballast. Walking on ballast is hard, and it’s even more onerous after a bunch of miles of rail trail. I knew that the trail was not maintained through the town. Walking behind a grain elevator on what was barely discernible as trail, I saw a guy walking a small poofy dog. He asked “where are you going?” suspiciously. I pointed east, and said “that way.” Less than a hundred yards further, the trail vanished in a pile of junk in someone’s backyard. I walked roads another mile to a Sonic, my chosen spot for a break. There I got a couple of breakfast burritos and a big cup of coffee. I walked out of Osage CIty munching a burrito and wondering how places can exude such negative vibes.
Just after Osage City, I topped a very small rise to witness what has to be the longest straight stretch of trail I’d ever seen. I was fat and happy with my recent burritos and almost skipping with the influx of energy from the coffee, so the scene didn’t hit me badly. Given already deteriorated conditions, that kind of sight could cause one to reconsider any more forward motion. When there is obviously nothing ahead but unrelenting trail, that which you might ought to have already brought forth is likely to come out for a chat.
A few miles later, I walked within a mile or two of our rental, and Allison came out to meet me. It was good to see her, if only for a moment or two.
After noon, finally into single digit miles remaining for the day, the landscape began to shift again. I noticed my cell service was gone, and the ever present farms were gone as well. I saw occasional old stone fences in the woods, and there were more frequent stretches through bogs. At one, I sat down for a self administered foot rub, my preparation for the last 5 miles of the day. The bog nearby stretched out in a deep maroon that bogs always seem to have in the winter. Endless seed pods from lilies perched above the water on thin stems. A few months before, the spot was likely breathtaking.
A mile or two before the end of the trail for the day, a bald eagle soared over me.
