hunger

A friend from my study abroad posted this picture today. It about sums up the way many of us felt (or at least how I felt) most days as we are traipsing across the English countryside.

I'm pretty sure we quoted Chris Farley nearly every single day. Because it's true. We were starving. Not in a "Donner Party cannibalistic desperation" sort of way, but in a "holy cow, we just hiked fifteen miles and I could eat every sheep within the next hundred yards if I could walk another step" sort of way. The irony is that there was plenty to eat. I gained weight despite all of our adventures. coughmuscleweighsmorethanfatcough. But on the days when we were booking it, it seemed like I could never pack enough down.

For me, one of the most memorable food days was when we hiked twenty miles along the Penine Way in Yorkshire (and no, that number is not an exaggeration. The bursitis on my heels occasionally reminds me of what I did to them in hiking boots two sizes too small). From the Bronte parsonage to the Earby Youth Hostel, we marched and marched and marched. Rain poured horizontally. The ground squelched beneath us as we tramped through scratchy purple-brown heather.

At about 10:00 that night, we finally made it to our hostel. I'm pretty sure I had long since exhausted my supply of Muller rice pudding and Nutella and marmalade sandwiches. I was hungry and grumpy and sore and smelled like a barnyard. I was also ready to go and snag a sheep or two to snarf on. Luckily for the sheep, a few members of our group hitched a ride to the hostel to make dinner before the rest of us arrived.

My memories of that night are kind of sketchy, but I do remember the soup. It was liquified manna. Angels sang and trumpets cheered. There were tears of gratitude (not mine, someone else's). It didn't matter that I went to bed smelling like a cow had dumped a field on me. My belly was full, the hunger pains were gone, and I could rest assured that they wouldn't come back until we continued our moor march the next morning.

[More pictures of the moors here. Thanks to Skoticus for documenting our journey.]