For me, the incessant wind in North Dakota is a bit tiring. It reminds me of the wind in the great basin in Wyoming on the Continental Divide Trail where some hikers feel the wind is making them crazy and they end up screaming for it to stop. The wind certainly has given me something to pay attention to when peeing or setting up my tent. A few times, the wind has come up underneath the vestibule of my tent, torn stakes out of the ground and knocked the tent down while I’ve been inside! The wind is often strong enough to push me with my complete pack sideways on the trail. When it’s raining, it’s hard to use my umbrella. Often when I stop and take anything out of my pack, I have to hold onto it with one hand lest the wind blow it away. Besides the wind, one challenge has been the ground which has been either too hard to get a stake in well, or so soft that the stakes pull out easily.

One evening I met Krystal, a lovely young woman who just spent her first year out of North Dakota at college in New York State. One of the things she mentioned to me was it wasn’t until there was a windy day in New York that she realized how much she missed the wind. I thought how interesting that was. She had grown up with the wind a constant in her life. Hearing and feeling the wind was the norm. She didn’t have an awareness of what it was like to live without it. This left me thinking about all the things we get used to and accept as normal, and how what is normal for one person can be a trial or a joyful novelty for someone else.

This morning, when I pulled three ticks off me that were actually embedded, I found that I took them more in stride. I guess to some extent I’ve gotten used to ticks in a new way. I still want to be careful and do what I can do to prevent tick illnesses, but becoming a bit more comfortable with them makes my trip more enjoyable when I’m picking 50 a day off of me. It also helps that I have found positives about the wind, such as the fact that on a hot day it feels bearable because of the constant wind cooling me down as I walk.

Unfortunately, I’ve gotten used to walking along water I wouldn’t begin to drink because it’s so full of toxic chemicals from agricultural runoff.

I’m trying to get used to a painful foot and an older body that aged quite a bit when forced into inactivity after my foot was severely burned. I planned to start the North Country Trail with shorter mile days but it’s been hard because of the distance between acceptable camping spots and water sources which have mostly come from people putting water out for me. I had to do some 20 mile days which leave me plenty of time to tell my brain to get used to the pain in my foot and to see it as something other than pain. I haven’t quite gotten there yet, though I can feel my body once again getting used to the daily chores of carrying a pack for hours on end.

I’ve met some really kind people, including Krystal’s mother Brenda, who slack packed me so I could get a long day of road walking in without carrying a heavy pack. After her work, day ended, she drove an hour to pick me up. She treated me to dinner and let me spend the night in a cabin on their land where I was able to wash my clothes and use the kitchen. A number of other people have been kind to me out here as well, including the farmer who turned his tractor around and came down the road to have me sit in the cab when a bad hail storm came in. Because I grew up in an abusive family, it took me a long time to get used to people’s kindness and to know it came with no strings attached. I felt guilty about taking something from anyone, feeling undeserving of their kindness. In fact, at one point in my life, I was wary of people and expected to be negatively judged by everyone. I’ve since come to believe it’s important to assume people will be kind and to approach them with my walls down as opposed to living from a place of fear. However, I never want to get so used to people being kind that I take it for granted or expect to be treated special on the trail. I want to make sure every act of kindness I receive is met with deep gratitude.

One thing I’m kind of getting used to on the North Country Trail is being stopped by sheriffs. I would think an old lady carrying a backpack wouldn’t look too threatening, but in a number of towns where I’ve slept in the camping areas in the town parks, I’ve had sheriffs pull in and keep an eye on me for a while. After having two sheriffs track me down on the canal (described in my holy shit day blog), I tried to be more careful where I took my breaks, but when the trail goes 60 miles down roads, I have no choice but to find a place on the side of the road to sit. On one of these road walks, someone again called the sheriff on me. These encounters have mostly been harmless, although I did wonder why one sheriff needed to know my name and birthdate. He informed me that everyone knows everyone up here and while they do get vagrants, they want to make sure they keep moving on. I hate the idea of accepting interactions with the law as the norm and I know if I was a person of color, this would’ve been the norm for me for most of my life, especially walking into a store or other area where most of the population is white, as it seems to be in this part of North Dakota.

I’ve gotten used to walking for days without seeing anyone on a trail that at least at this point is not wilderness. I’ve also gotten used to pushing my way through prairie grasses that are up to my armpits. But just because I’ve gotten used to these things, doesn’t mean I like them or want to accept them. Some of the scenery has been pretty, especially walking along Lake Ashtabula which is formed by a dam on the very windy Sheyenne River. Seeing the grass ripple in the wind is like watching an exquisite dance. But pushing through thick grasses, tripping on barbed wire or branches that are under the grass and sometimes stumbling through deep ruts or wet areas, makes it hard for me to enjoy the beauty.

I miss my days of walking wilderness trails such as the Continental Divide, the Pacific Crest and the Arizona Trail, but for now I know this is about all my foot can handle, so I’m trying to be grateful for what I can do rather than focusing on what I can’t do.

And no matter where I’m hiking, I hope I never get used to political rhetoric and name-calling that is demeaning to anyone, no matter which side you’re on. One thing that hiking all these national scenic trails has taught me is people are kind across the political spectrum and my hope for this country as it celebrates it’s 250th birthday, is that we get better at interacting from a place of kindness, understanding and compassion rather than a place of power, ego or greed.

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