After spending my first night in the tent last night, on the south side of Rice Hill, I toughed my way through forming blister on the bottom of my right foot, between the big toe and its neighbor. On today’s walk, I discovered that Oregon has a town named Oakland.
I hobbled into Sutherlin, a growing fire circle of a blister expanding in size almost every step. I tried to tough it out, and ignore the pain. This worked for a while– only later would I learn that ignoring the ignition of acute blister pain is like ignoring part of your house on fire.
Luckily, upon reaching town, a couple of friendly elder lumberjack gentleman hollered at me to come have a bit to eat (on them) in a local restaurant. They didn’t look much different from backwoods villains you may find in the movie Deliverance– something that, in the back of my mind, still sort of scared me. I’m glad they stopped me though– they really helped to dispel the Deliverance myth which had infected my soul.

This blister is really bad, and it will take some days before I can resume.