It became pitch black outside and the fire was dying out. We decided to go to sleep and as with the night before, I let my mother change in the tent before I got in. Again I was treated to her silhouette strip show. It had been an exhausting day and we both fell into deep sleep until the rising sun and singing birds woke us. We broke camp and went on to finish the remaining seven miles. The trail went up a steep slope for a awhile which caused my mother’s legs to ache. We stopped and I removed about ten pounds of gear from her backpack to mine. This helped Gwen but added more strain to my legs. Fortunately the last five miles was downhill or level. It was late afternoon when we reached our car and the ranger’s station. It was too late to drive home as I thought and we were too tired to drive. The park was full for the holiday week. Lucky for us, the ranger had a last minute cancellation and had a cabin available for that evening. It was smaller than the one we had when we arrived but it beat sleeping overnight in the car. We carried our packs into the cabin and both of stared at the one single bed in the room.
“I guess I will sleep on the floor on the sleeping bags” I sighed.
“No” my mom said, “You have carried almost everything in my pack today. You deserve a comfortable bed tonight. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
I didn’t want to argue about the sleeping arrangements and simply said, “We’ll see.”
We were getting hungry and too tired to go anywhere. I thought that there was a little general store next to the ranger’s station that still might be open and decided to check it out. There was some left over trail food if it was closed. I left mom at the cabin to shower and relax while I walked to over the ranger area. It was still open and it turned out to be more like a quick shop or seven eleven in a cabin. I bought some high priced sodas, chips, sandwiches, and chocolate bars then headed back with my paper bag of goodies. By then Gwen was out of the shower and in a fresh night shirt. She had fixed her hair and put on some makeup after three days of roughing it. She even got a tan from being outdoors and she looked very attractive.
She sat on a chair and I sat on the edge of the bed and shared the nightstand for our dining table, feasting on junk food after days of dried foodstuffs. After finishing the chocolate, I headed for the shower as I was still dirty, smelly, and unshaven from the hike. The warm shower felt so good as three days of hiking washed off me. I shaved and put on fresh briefs. When I came out, mom was already setting up one sleeping bag on top of another on the floor. I just shook my head and sat on the edge of the bed looking at my mother arranging the sleeping bags.
“Mom!” I said, “I will sleep on the floor. You take the bed.”
“Richie” she said “You carried all that stuff for me. I know you are exhausted and your legs must be sore. Besides it’s rather soft here using the two bags on top of each other.”
“Well my legs are really sore” I said reluctantly.