I walked back to the SAFEWAY, to see if I could hook-up with any of these casual campers hiding out among the rich & famous in Pinetop. I just cruised back into the woods, looking for sign; not elk-sign; not bear-sign; not this time. I went looking for those little tell-tale signs that someone has been sleeping back there. I found none, but found some easy trail & followed it far into the 'backside' of Pinetop. Soon, I was ready to leave my sign; found a shady spot that looked suitable to me; started the sign-leaving process the way a true KING OF THE ROAD does it. That ROGER MILLER; been reciting those lyrics for a few days now. Everyone in America[of a certain age] probably knows every word by heart; I saw MILLER on TV once; right in the middle of probably his most popular song, he completely blanked out on the lyrics and had to hum a few bars. He laughed at himself; tried to explain why this happens all the time; I ain't buying the 'logical' explanation, but I was laughing at him; LOL!
I trimmed my toenails. My shoes, that I'd had off my feet drying most of the morning while at the Truck Stop with understanding Linda, had managed to shrink up a bit[a true hobo would have known this; would have kept them on & kept moving about for a couple of miserable days until they were quite dry]; it felt so good to have those shoes off, I left them off. My socks[clean and fresh just 14 hours before] were stuck down to those blisters again; not a particularly good sign. I had those socks off too; reversed them and let them dry out; I'm still looking for a place to wash out the swamp-dipped ones I had removed at the Truck Stop. Soon, they will be so much cleaner than the ones that I'm wearing that I will swap them out. I put some antibiotic cream on my poor feet before I put my shoes back on later. I unpacked all the 'hard' items, like my notebook, from my backpack, kind of making a pillow from it. I removed my eyewear[most 'normal' people remove their glasses at bedtime; leaving them on more than this quickly leads to discomfort(& soon deterioration) where those nose-supports rest on the snoz], and tucked one earpiece safely down the neck of my t-shirt, and took a snooze.
On the way into my idyllic quiet spot in the ponderosa forest with the woodpeckers, I'd taken note of a couple of important things; I'd crossed a creek where there were lava-boulders making the only path 'til you are across; there was even some water back there[I think they call such deep catchbasins 'tanks' out here; the natives here should hire themselves a Georgia-boy to help them find water in dry Arizona], though awfully muddy for washing socks; there was something in there alive[from what I saw & heard, I'm guessing a small turtle]; crossing the same rocks again to get back out of the woods, if it were dark by then would be difficult, evenwith a flashlight. Another observation had been that this was not Sitgreaves National Forest; there were no tresspassing signs all over the place back there.
Just about twenty minutes after sundown, I awoke from my less-than-comfortable snooze. It took only a few seconds to decide that if I hurried, I could get back over those rocks before it got dark, and that staying 'til morning was a bad idea. I reorganized my things back into the pack, got my feet back into traveling condition & beat feet back down that trail.