day 38, 9:15pm, getting cleaned up

everything is alright again. i'm clean, i'm dry, my gear is dry and i'm sleeping indoors tonight. and i think it's all because of a friendly woman at temple 83.
when i rolled into temple 83, i was looking (and probably smelling) pretty rough. a woman working at the temple came over to ask the usual questions and to give me a couple candies. we talked about the weather and i told her i was camping out. she wanted to know if i was alright after last night's storm. it was a fairly regular conversation (my japanese small talk has improved a lot).
i went through my temple routine and by the time i got to the stamp office i'm pretty sure all the other temple staff had heard all about me from the woman i had talked to.
the monk doing the stamp and calligraphy didn't accept my money and said it was osettai. he asked if i needed a place to stay. it was a bit early to stop but i asked if he knew of any good places. he gave me a map for a zenkonyado near the temple.
i decided to stop and get my things sorted out. so my gear is good, i had another lovely udon dinner, i picked up some supplies, and i got a haircut (feels great).
i guess i'm ready for my last week on the trail.

snake count +1 (have to check the count)
a notable experience today. the henro trail went right through the middle of the gardening center of a large DIY hardware store. i thought that was kind of cool.

night,