The Lord Acts in Strange Ways
It was 5 AM Sunday. I only remembered the day a camper driver filling his gas tank had reminded me. Once again it was drizzling, cold and overcast. The tiny hotel’s restaurant at Johnsons Crossing didn’t open until 7 AM.
Fatigued, I started walking up a big hill. I was now traveling east to cover a stretch of road I hadn’t yet walked. Strangely I felt better as I climbed and disappeared into the fog.
The heavy mist hid the trees packed thickly in the surrounding woods.
Being armed with bear spar seemed useless. There would be no time to react if a grizzly stealthy attacked. Fearfully, I pushed on another hour thinking only of hot coffee and breakfast which I hoped would greet me somewhere up to road. Finally, hungry and now fully awake, I returned to my vehicle and drove to shack like food stop called Jake’s Corner.
I ordered eggs with bacon and headed for a quick stop in the restroom. This was s mistake. When I too quickly bent down to pick up a piece a paper, a piercing pain raced up my leg and stabbed my spine. I could not stand up straight and walked with a pronounced limp. I remembered then the council of my walking coaches “stretch, stretch, stretch!” I had foolishly let the aroma of greasy bacon neglect this cardinal rule of long distance walkers. Now I was really injured.
Eating, while standing, and bent over like an arthritic old man, I contemplated my options. Quitting was out of the question. “Rest”, that was the answer. Thinking I might be bedridden for days I decided to drive to the nearest town on the map Teslin some 60 miles west.
Driving too was painful. In an hour I had found a hotel and soaked in a hot bath while my back throbbed and my mind reminded me how nice it was to go home to New York.
The warm water was soothing but my conscientious bothered me. If I was not walking, I should go to church to give thanks to God for allowing me to have walked 800 miles since I began my adventure two years earlier. Determined I limped a mile to the small church only because it was less painful than driving.