Full Belly Moon

I left this place on a high note. I also left with a full belly. As often is the case on my backpacking adventures, I bring more food with me than I can eat. From time to time, I try to lighten the load before heading out. While packing it up, I stuffed my face. Somehow I figure it’s got to be easier to carry it around the waist rather than on the back.

Watch your step.

The journey out of here was incredible. Drop dead gorgeous scenes in all directions. There was; however, one scene that wasn’t such a pretty sight. All those bicep curls into my mouth gave me quite the belly aching. I needed to sit down. Take a load off. Luckily I had been hiking along a creek the whole time. A short hop and a skip and I was creekside.

I stripped off my backpack and got down to my undies. I gave my armpits a whiff. I stunk. I’m sure that underwear was twice as bad with all the natural gas I was filtering through them over the course of the adventure. I headed into nature’s revolutionary laundry machine, bath, and drinking fountain triple combination. The creek was running quick. And with all the snowmelt, it was cold. But dang refreshing. I laid down and nestled myself in amongst some smooth rocks. I stayed mostly submerged for as long as I could. Rub-a-dubbed. I cupped and drank loads of water. I’d get out and go a couple more rounds with all of the above - making sure none of what hit my lips was ever downstream of that underwear.

Coming out I knew there was mud. Much of the soil was flush with water. Like walking on a big sponge in spots. Other spots were thick mud. I didn’t mind the juicy step or two, but sure didn’t want to transfer it onto my clean clothes. So I had to proceed with some caution. Swiftly got the soaking wet briefs off. Placed them in the sun. Grabbed the clean pair. Dipped my feet back in the creek. I knew I wanted a clean exchange here. No double pumping and stepping on them. But that’s precisely what I did. I got one leg in and then as I was balancing, my foot sunk into a muddy spot. I panicked and started hopping around. I tried shoving my other as-of-that-moment-clean foot into the hole. Didn’t work. I ended up getting my foot stuck, then immediately stepping on and squeezing my underwear directly into the mud.

I went back to square one. Started walking towards my original pair. Went through the mud again. It literally squirted through my toes, launched in the air, and landed directly onto where they were drying. I had soiled my underwear. Again.