There’s a saying in the backpacking world and it’s “trail legs.” Some people are born with them while I have to work for them. It usually takes me three weeks and overnight my legs start chiming at a different pace. Today was the day. Even Triple-Z who was evidentially born with hers was behind me! I just figured she was taking it easy but she noticed a bounce in my step. Good thing since I took us off course on a two mile rabbit chase, ugh! The only consolation prize was that the trail was fairly flat and it was still early in the morning. Extra credit miles are just a nice way of saying, I missed a turn! Today was another day of road walking which was through prairies, plains and cow fields. It was actually very pretty and reminded me of Wyoming or Montana with the wide open spaces where you can see forever. The weather has been spectacular, not too hot and not too cold. The clouds have moved in to make for beautiful skies with little sprinkles here and there, just enough to cool us off! Thank you all for praying for the change of weather. Our good Lord is hearing your prayers and blessing us with brilliant days on the trail. Gathering water has been a topic of conversation between Triple-Z and I. With my last bout of Guardia two years ago, we have decided to double attack our purification in cow country. We have been using Aqua Mira which is basically bleach and kills 99.9 % of all water borne creepy crud. After we use that which typically takes 20 minutes, yet we decided to up it to a 35 minute process. The more time to kill stuff, the better! Then we use Triple-Z’s Sawyer Squeeze, which we believe, gets out the other .01% that the Aqua Mira doesn’t kill. So far, so good. No belly aches and all of our food is digesting properly. As we were getting in our last few miles of the day, we were experiencing huge gusts of winds. Typically we’ve had crosswinds or worse yet headwinds, but God was pushing us to camp with this incredible tailwind. When you are on that last climb and suddenly you have someone pushing you up the final leg, that is God! I was at the end of my trail legs for the day and was praying for a little extra strength. Then lo and behold, this tailwind shows up! It was from heaven above. I mentioned before I feel like I am transported from one place to another, that’s what I’m talking about. God loves us so much that when we think we are done, when we have nothing left in our tank, He picks us up and finishes it off for us. That’s our amazing, incredible, magnificent God that we serve! But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:31