Not too long after we all got settled into bed, Mr Bean yells out “dirty little bastards all around” and then we see a head lamp pass the shelter. I assumed that he had mice crawling on him (surprisingly, it’s not really that bothersome any more) and he decided to camp instead. When we woke up, he was still where he had been last night but there was a new hammock beside the shelter. Mr Bean didn’t remember saying anything, but Beans was in the hammock. To recap, Mr Bean didn’t get up, but more Beans arrived.
Beans is carrying a can of Bush Baked Beans to Katahdin is how he got his trail name. I think I might be tempted to eat them and shed the weight. Beans likes beans. Weight is not a concern to him since he’s only 18 and full of energy. He likes to night hike to stay out of the heat so he arrived around midnight just as Mr Bean was shooing away the bastards (whoever they may have been) in his dreams.
We were about a half hour later than everyone else (other than Beans) getting out of the shelter. This was perfect timing for us today. Barely a mile or two of trail was behind us when I ran into a guy sitting in a lawn chair reading a copy of Walden—this is someone who knows how to enjoy the outdoors. As I approached him, he got up and walked back to the road and then offered me the chair. Super Dave was out giving trail magic in the form of fruit, sodas, and hot dogs. He said he would be able to guess where we were from by what condiments we put on our dogs. He nailed Bunny but put me down as a northerner—the lack of catsup threw him off.
Super Dave has hiked the Triple Crown. We talked hiking experiences for a while and discovered that we both had been on the Camino de Santiago at the same time last year—he was just 3 days ahead of us the entire way. He invited us to come into town for dinner this evening that some friends were making. We were considering the offer when he assured us that they weren’t serial killers luring hikers in. That was all we needed to hear, we were in. He agreed to pick us up at a road crossing in another 6-7 miles.
Super Dave also had given us some bad news; the forest fire at McAfee Knob we had heard about, is true. It had started Sunday and had been the lead story on the news for the last couple of nights. This was really the part that made us decide to go to supper (although it was very reassuring to know they weren’t going to ritually kill us for dessert). He also told us that he knew RTK through work and he had come to dinner last week. This lead us to believe that Super Dave was a lawyer—shark, possibly; serial killer, no.
Chef and Beans stopped by before we left and they eventually both passed us before we made it to Laurel Creek Shelter. The only other person we saw was Doc, (since he wasn’t a dwarf with a stethoscope, we assumed he might actually have been a Dr) a sobo. He told us. there was more magic ahead at the next road crossing. Today was turning out to be our most successful day so far.
We still stopped for lunch at Laurel Creek Shelter—reduction of pack weight is still our number 1 priority for now. After the hot dogs, soda, and orange (Bunny chose the orange soda so she had a banana) we couldn’t eat the entire 2 pounds of food I had set out for lunch. The main thing we wanted was to take a little edge off of our hiker hunger to not scare the nice people that were having us in their home for supper—not much we can do about the smell, but we can make ourselves not appear to be starving, smelly, homeless people.
Sure enough, at the next road crossing, there was more magic. Everyone that had been planning on big mile today was stopped. Chef was playing the guitar. Mossy (the Aussie) had been sitting here for 22 hours straight eating. Pleasure House, the magic provider, had thru-hiked last year so she had all kinds of sandwhich fixings, cookies, beer, Gatorade, fresh veggies, etc. We were a little tight on time since we were supposed to meet Super Dave at 5, but we scarfed a little more to make sure we didn’t appear too ravenous at dinner.
Super Dave picked us up on time at the next road crossing. We talked about more of his hiking experiences and found out that he has also hiked the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path. Unlike us, he did it a few years ago. We hiked it just before the Camino last year to get our legs ready. He also confirmed that not only was he a lawyer, he was also a substitute judge. Since he caught the hiking bug, he has begun to wind his practice down so he can spend more time hiking. He was just about to close his practice completely (to devote more time to hiking) and had even started signing up for Medicare.
We joined the Tuesday night dinner club, that Chris and Susie have been hosting for the last 24 years. Chris is a lawyer (whom Dave interviewed for a job when he got out of law school and didn’t hire because he wasn’t planning on expanding his practice). In spite of their hiring encounter decades ago, they have become great friends. Chris is also an elected official in the local county (assessor?). The setting for dinner was their house on a bluff overlooking the New River. Everyone was welcoming and accepting of the smelly folk Dave had brought to dinner—they’ve all seen Dave in worse hiker shape over the years. They had lots of dogs, cats, and goats, around, so a few stray hikers were barely noticed.
After supper, Super Dave took us to a Microtel rather than back to the trail. We had decided to get Bunny some new boots and get rid of her trail runners. Dave was sitting as a judge tomorrow, so we would have to wait until his docket was clear before we would get back on the trail. This was fine for us. That meant a shower, sleeping late, and another town meal or two or three, but no more than four.
EFG