It’s currently 3am and I’m struggling. I’m writing this while lying on a picnic table at one of those MDOT roadside parks. Looking up through the trees, it’s incredible how many stars there are. Out here, miles from anything significant, the sky is filled.
Things started off really well tonight. I was making good progress. On pace for my first Sub-4 day finish. Then everything kind of fell apart. A thunderstorm blew in. Two relatively small cells – basically the only thing on the radar in all of northern Michigan – hit me directly. Driving rain and multiple lightning strikes far too close for comfort. I waited it out sitting crouched in a ball on a pallet from which someone was selling firewood. I could feel my Sub-4 slipping away.
When the storm finally retreated I got moving again; my shoes feeling as though I’d just waded through a river. Suddenly, my nose began to bleed. Out of nowhere. Worse yet, I couldn’t get it to stop. Covered in blood, I used Maple leaves as kleenex. I was washing my face in what remained of puddles in the road between passing traffic.
I messaged my companions in this endeavor and they helped build me back up. While maybe not the same scenarios, we were all dealing with our own problems. They inspired me. Then, just a few minutes later, I came around the corner to this scene, and the cooler hidden behind the guardrail at the base of the hill. Had I simply driven to this moment, I probably still would have taken note. But after everything that had just happened, it was breathtaking.
All this is but a few hours in the adventure I’ve been on since Tuesday morning. I’m now facing the hard fact that the Sub-4 is gone, but I know that whatever the clock says, it will have been worth every second.
I just need to get there. 
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p.s. Perhaps this is all just mindless rambling, I am rather exhausted. But writing it is helping to keep me awake – a fact I also find somewhat ironic after my post just the other day. Either way, if you’ve made it to the end….. Thank You.