“You know,” I remarked to Britta, “It’s not really so much a trail as it is a series of markers.”

“You’re right,” she agreed.

We were standing at the top of a small rise, squinting in the sun and staring into the scrub brush surrounding us, searching for a trail marker, a wooden post, a blue-painted rock — anything to tell us where to go next.

“There.” Britta pointed to the small outline of a sign some three hundred yards away. And we were off again, trying to keep the sign in sight while navigating the rocky ground underfoot. Continually looking for markers became a habit, a fact of the trail, as we walked towards the first town on the trail: Lordsburg.

We’d originally thought it might take us five days to walk the 85 miles into Lordsburg. We soon changed our minds. Both Britta and I got mildly sick with the sneezes and sniffles, and our bodies were working to adjust to suddenly walking all day every day under a hot sun. There was no reason to hurry, so we decided to take it easy (cue the Eagles song). Five days became seven as we enjoyed the desert scenery and let our daily milage drop to around 11 the last few days.

Exactly one week after being dropped off at the Mexican border, the two of us walked down the gravely shoulder of New Mexico Highway 494, faces caked with dust and red with sunburn (despite the 70 SPF sunscreen we’d rigorously applied several times a day). We were powered by two dominating thoughts of what waited for us in the town ahead: showers and hamburgers.

We arrived, checked into the hotel, and quickly crossed those two things off our to-do list. We enjoyed a dinner with some other hikers, restocked on food, and enjoyed the luxury of sleeping in a bed. Now it’s back to the trail. Silver City, here we come!