The world has returned to normal—we were the last to leave the shelter at 9a. Still, a respectable time for us considering that we had more to do today since we had gotten in so late last night. We had intended to “split” a large breakfast of biscuits and gravy, but Bunny decided sharing was just a suggestion and not a requirement. She did let me taste them at least.
I’m disappointed with the number of people not packing out their trash. Dirty R carried a bag of garbage that he picked up from Plumorchard Shelter. Back in my day, we didn’t call it “no trace” camping, we just had a nice little saying: “Leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but pictures, waste nothing but time.”
Yesterday, Bunny was leading the way down the trail when she just stopped. She looked confused (much more so than usual). She turned around and said the trail just disappeared. It is pretty obvious to me now that Bunny is VERY right dominant. The trail took a hard left and she couldn’t see it.
It was a pleasant day of hiking. It was cool, but foggy once again. After we stopped for lunch, the sun burnt off the fog and we had some sunshine. Lucky 59 and Pepper Pot caught up to us as we were finishing our lunch. We hiked with them for a couple of miles and plan to catch up with them Sunday evening in Franklin, NC. Not too surprisingly, our political views coincide quite nicely (but then there are a tremendous number of intelligent hikers in the world).
We were the first in the shelter right at 2. Lucky and Pepper went on so they can get into Franklin tomorrow evening and take a zero day on Sunday. Several more hikers came in and left. Madlibs is staying in the shelter with us. She decided to take a year off from school and hike the AT. She will begin her career this fall. Another couple hikers (Hot Legs and Aleia with her dog, Zulu) came in that we met as we were leaving Top of Georgia Hiker Hostel; they are camping and have a dog with them. It’s a cute little gal but is having some problems with her shoulder.
Here it is only 4 and we are all organized for tomorrow. I’ve got all our meals lined out until we get to town. My goal is to run out of berroca as soon as we can. This is an energy drink supplement that Richard and Craig got us hooked on last year when we stayed with them in London. The only problem I have with it is that every time I pee, I get afraid that I’ve ingested some sort of fluorescent yellow radioactive tracer. I’ll spare you the actual picture.
A great advantage of camping with youngsters is that they get in so early and have energy to burn. Hot Legs built a fire and we all sat around and talked until the late hour of 8. I know it’s a little extravagant to stay up so late, but a fire is worth it. After I learned Hot Legs’ name, I had another ear worm that took me a while to identify—“Hot Legs” by Rod Stewart. I can’t look at Hot Legs now without picturing Rod Stewart in red leather pants.
EFG
Stop me if this is getting tiresome…but I also stayed at Carter Gap shelter (in both 1974 with my brother, and in 1981 by myself), only it was a tiny hovel with the floor at ground level. Probably about a quarter of the size of that monstrosity in your picture.
Not at all tiresome. I’m glad you’re reading along. Carter Gap has some damage to the floor which Patches slept over. It would be the perfect spot for a guy to sleep over and NOT have to get up at night 😉
What is your ETA the SNP?
It’s still hard to nail down, but we are hopeful for mid-May. We are just about to enter the Smokies and will have a better idea once we start putting in some longer days and see how these tired, old bodies do.