It was quite late for me when I got up and going at long last. I suppose it was the late night, but it wasn’t until about 9 that I got my pack on and started looking for that store. My first stop, though, was the library I’d past on the way in a few doors down from me. Closed. It was no longer becoming a surprise to me. Second, I found the store. Closed. Oh well, I refilled my water in the park and shuffled off.
The land had flattened since I got off that mountain into a sea of wheat. Walking straight west down that road was like swimming the ocean of the stuff with no sight of anything for miles. Miles that kept expanding from what my map was telling me.
My map told me that from Helix to Holdman was 13 miles, my mile markers as I passed them told me it was 14. Getting into Holdman, after a break with a Clif, I was expecting by my map to get another 11 miles to the US-730 junction. The mile markers let me know it was 13, then I passed a sign that read Umatilla 23 miles. My map calculations said it’d be 21 from there. All in all I had 5 extra miles to go.
Many miles down the way my water started becoming a great concern to me as all the creeks were dried up. A couple stopped to ask about me and thankfully gave me the last slurpings of their Mountain Dew, which was heaven, before a speeding honking truck shuffled them on. By the end of the day I was two miles from Hat Rock State Park I’d been anticipating my water ran out completely. I quickened my step as the cottonmouth worsened until I spotted with great joy a sign telling of a store and grille in Hat Rock. I got in, parched and hungry, at 7:50 and the store closed at 8. Thankfully the lady there gave me a huge mug of water, nuked up some beef stew and let me sit inside out of the heat as she did her closing duties. By 8:30 I was refreshed and back on the highway for another mile before camping down in a patch of sage brush. I went over my maps, wrote in my journal, and read while eating Fig Newtons before conking out for the night.