Napping on the Beach

August 6, 1983, Saturday

I had planned on starting at 5:00am, but I woke up late and started the run at 7:45am. Actually, I started by walking a couple of miles before stopping in a store to get some breakfast. I had a nice little chat with the lady in the store as I bought my breakfast of rice balls and a coffee drink. She was very friendly and pointed out some things that I should look out for on today’s route to Haboro. She let me know about a fairly long tunnel that I had coming up.

A cloudy day today, so no worries about running under the pounding of the sun again today. However, my knee was hurting today. It must be all the pounding with the extra weight on my back.

I reached the town of Haboro in the early afternoon so I went to the beach and took a short nap on the sand. It was really relaxing, just lying there and listening to the waves coming in. I was thinking about how the ocean here is not quite the same as what I was used to in Guam. This place is close to Siberia and I am sure that the water is freezing cold, even in the summertime.

I got up after a short nap and made my way to the Haboro Youth Hostel to call it a day. I had read on the bathroom wall of one of the other Youth Hostels that the food here is exceptionally good. It’s not really something that you want to see while sitting on a toilet seat and it makes you wonder if the person writing it is being truthful. Well, it turns out that the food was quite good here, at least the dinner was tonight.

What I am worried about, though, is why they have so many signs here about what to do in case you run into a bear. The bears are exceptionally hungry this summer due to the lack of food in their usual foraging areas and are coming closer to town. I can use some of those bells for my shoes right now.