Category: 2018 Appalachian Trail

I awoke to the smell of brewing coffee. I was so impressed that my little Bunny took the initiative to get up and get things going, then I remembered we were in a hostel. I looked over and saw Bunny still asleep. It was then that my world turned upside down when Buttercup flipped on the lights without warning. It was already 7:30. Patches had said she was contemplating getting up early enough to make sunrise on McAfee Knob. I checker her bunk to find her stuff still there.

Donna, the hostel owner, brought in a pan of breakfast casserole that she made for us to have. I was grateful because we only had a protein bar and coffee planned and I was still hungry. She told us that we could expect and easy walk today since we were nobo. The people slack packing or sobo all had worse days ahead of them. We said our goodbyes to everyone and headed out with Gnome right at 9:30. Patches said she’s be just a few minutes behind us—we may never see her again.

It was a very nice walk out. The rain of the last couple of days has really helped to green things up and get flowers blooming. We had an idyllic walk along a mountain stream for about a mile. We left the stream and climbed up to some open pastures. Bunny was slightly ahead when we heard her yell “habanero.” Gnome and I started looking around for them. We gave up trying to find them and asked her where. “What are you talking about? I said kind of narrow.” She was going through a stile.

A little later, I heard a thump of something behind me and Gnome said something. I asked Bunny what he dropped and she said “wooden leg.” I’ve been hiking with Gnome for almost 3 weeks and this is the first time I found out he had a wooden leg. “What are you talking about? I said sleeping bag.” Bunny mumbles a bit and tries to blame me. True dat.

The rest of the morning was a very easy hike. We decided to not eat lunch until we came to Johns Spring Shelter in the hopes of scoring some trail magic at the road crossing before we begin the climb to McAfee Knob. What an ideal location and time for trail magic—the first Saturday after the trail opens back up after being closed for a forest fire. The closest we came to magic was a groundhog eating flowers along the trail.

Johns Spring Shelter is just a mile after the road. We decided to take a nice long lunch break to give Patches a chance to catch up. Iron Man and Murphy passed us and told us that she was still at the hostel looking “mighty comfy” when they left and they thought they had heard her say that she should get going—this is bad. That’s what she says just before falling asleep almost every night since we met her on the second day. She might be taking another zero.

A young fire fighter, Brian, walked into the shelter area to check things over. Up to this point, we could smell the burnt wood (which we mistakingly thought was a fire for trail magic about a mile back) but couldn’t see any evidence of the burn. He told us that almost 150 acres of woods had caught on fire, but it was just a leaf and duff burn. The fire hadn’t gone vertical. He shared a lot of information on how they combat fires and what has to be done to contain them. He was originally from PA near Gettysburg and he, one day, hoped to hike the AT from there to where he lives now near Asheville.

Bunny went down to the privy before we left. When she came back, she told me she could see the fire burn below the privy. I went down to look and saw it was only about 5 feet from the privy. The shelter area was one part of the containment area for the fire. As soon as we left the shelter, we could see that the trail was fire block for almost a half mile up the mountain. The fire had burned right up to the trail from the east. We could see where the fire fighters had made the containment trench down from the trail to stop the fire from spreading.

There were a lot of day hikers and weekend campers out in the area. I’ve often thought that we are not getting any stronger, but today I felt pretty good about our progress. We were passing groups of people not even carrying packs as we climbed toward McAfee. Our goal had been to make it to the knob on a weekday to avoid crowds that swarm the area on weekends. Even though it was a weekend today, we had a couple things working in our favor: it was finals weekend at Virginia Tech which meant there wouldn’t be as many students out, and rain was predicted which meant there wouldn’t be as many families out since Americans tend to be fair weather hikers.

McAfee Knob was more amazing than we expected it to be, yet not as dangerous as it appears in pictures. If you fall, it’s less than 40’ down to trees and brush that will break your fall. It would still hurt, but now I understand why some people risk doing hand stands on the edge. I was tempted but Bunny was too afraid to let me try. (Yes, that’s the only reason I didn’t do a handstand.). There were probably only 20 other people up there so we had plenty of opportunity to get pictures near/over the edge of the cliff.

We had met Sebastian (from the Netherlands) just yesterday at the shelter and when we all went to dinner at the Home Place. He got to McAfee Knob just after us, so we took pictures for each other. There were also 3 girls going out for their first overnight backpacking trip that asked us to take some pictures for them; they had an older version of the same camera that I use. It was also up here that I discovered Gnome is afraid of heights. I’m learning all sorts of new things about him today—first a wooden leg and now this new fear.

We still had another 9 miles to go with another mountain to climb to get up to Tinker Cliffs before we could stop for the night Donna had told us that she finds Tinker Cliffs even more impressive than McAfee. I will go with equally impressive. There just isn’t as dramatic of an overhang to get pictures from. We started to descend McAfee and found ourselves in a maze of rocks comparable to Giant City in Southern Illinois except on a grander scale.

The sky was getting pretty dark by then and it even started to sprinkle a bit. We decided to duck into Campbell Shelter to get ready for the coming rain and, possibly, have a snack. Wood Chuck and Miagi were already there and looked like they were calling it a day. Wood Chuck’s shin was aching so he wanted to give his body some rest before it got worse. We told them that there were three young ladies on the way here for the night and that seemed to perk them up a bit. We also told them to expect Patches if she did actually make it out of the hostel. We didn’t anticipate her going beyond here because of the late hour (it was already 5 and we still had 6 more miles).

The three of us headed on to the next shelter fully expecting to have to do some night hiking to get there and then having to set up camp in the dark. We met a fourth, Farm All (as in Allis Chalmers Tractor) while we were doing some small climbs before the next mountain. Farm All is from Vermont and lost his dad when he was just a young kid. There were 7 kids in the family with him being one of the 3 oldest. After his dad’s death, their mother piled all the kids in a station wagon saying they needed to get away for a while. They ended up in Baxter where the 3 oldest climbed Katahdin. His oldest brother had a St Christopher medal that his dad had hanging on his rear view mirror and he left it under a rock on top of Katahdin. Now, almost 50 years later, Farm All was hiking the entire AT carrying another St Christopher medal that he was going to leave on top of the mountain in memory of his father.

Having a new hiker to walk with always energizes everyone. We get to tell stories again that people around us have already heard a few times, but it gives us something to keep our minds (and mouths) occupied so we don’t notice our walking. We made the remaining 6 miles at least a half hour faster than we had expected. Tinker Cliffs was impressive as we had anticipated.

When we got to Lamberts Meadow Shelter, we were completely surprised. There were 6 people already there, but they had decided to pitch tents instead of sleeping in the shelter, so we had an empty shelter to ourselves. Not only that, the forest service has provided a new bear safe so we didn’t have to hang any food bags tonight. These two things saved us 20 minutes of preparation for the night. It was still dark by the time Bunny and I were ready for bed, but we were snug and warm before the rains started. I’ve got to remember to give Bunny a good dose of Benadryl before a storm so she will sleep as peacefully as I do in thunderstorms. Tonight, I forgot, so we were both kept awake until the worst part passed.

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When we woke up in the morning, we had calmed down quite a bit. The night had cooled off and we had gotten some much needed rest. Bunny might say I was still grumpy, but Doc had set me down that path a few days ago. We still had no cell signal, so we had to continue on the trail. We managed to talk in a more civilized manner with each other and realized we didn’t need to go home to check on things—we could just call and talk to people. One of my big fears when Bunny went home last week was that she wouldn’t want to return to the trail. When people get off, it’s extremely difficult to get back on and Bunny is no exception. Add in the fact that she misses her kids and they had spent some quality time together when she was back home…

It was only a mile to Pickle Branch Shelter and we were back to normal by the time we arrived. We wanted to have a picnic table to sit at so we could have a relatively relaxed breakfast. There were only two problems with the shelter: 1) it was a half mile off the trail, and 2) the water was 100 yards past the shelter,
Decide to stay on trail (and that 100 yards was straight downhill which is why everyone else had chosen to stay at the road last night).

The log book at the shelter had a few entries that stated a momma and baby bear had been sighted in the area. We kept an eye out for them as we headed out. Murphy (named for the law where anything that can go wrong will go wrong) dropped in for some water as we were packing up. He had already put in 9 miles this morning to our 1. We passed another couple of guys sitting under a tree (Miagi and Wood Chuck) waiting for him to return. They were all headed to Four Pines Hostel where we had just decided to spend the night. When we ran into these guys at the hostel, they said they saw the bears just after we left. I am getting sick and tired of baiting our tent for bears with zero results while guys lounging around get free sightings—I’m crossing bears off my must see list.

It was supposed to be an easy 8 mile walk today with just four miles of incline to gain the 1600’ we needed to get to the ridge. That’s not really a bad incline at all, 400’/mile but we were dying. The sun was beating down hard. it was well over 80 at 9:30 when we had gotten to the shelter and there was no way I was going to look again. We each had a liter and a half of water to get us there. I was still upset about our short spring (it only lasted a day) before we turned to summer. We had white stains on our shirts, packs, and walking pole straps from salt which we were losing with our sweat. I had to keep Bunny from licking my shirt all the time for the salt.

I couldn’t stand having the sun beating on me, but I had to keep it off of me. I was sweating bad. To sop up the sweat, I was wearing my buff under my hat. The “Einstein light” went off about half way up. Alice had sent us ultra-light umbrellas which we were both carrying. I had figured out how to rig it up “hands free” for the rain and was planning on doing the same when we were ridge walking in PA. Why the light hadn’t gone off yesterday (unless my mind was to occupied with fighting rather than avoiding heat) I don’t know. It worked like a charm. I immediately cooled off 10 degrees down to just being unbearable heat instead of hellish.

Bunny copied me, as she always does (that’s why I order first in restaurants so it doesn’t look like I’m copying her). The last two miles up, even though hotter, were more pleasant walking. I knew we were getting close to the 700 mile mark and kept having Bunny check the GPS app (Guthook) for when we were there. I didn’t want to miss the milestone. My eyes were sweeping both sides of the trail looking for signs.

At Dragons Tooth, we ran into students out day hiking. We thought this was finals week at Virginia Tech and were surprised that there were so many out. We talked with several different groups only to find out that some had already had finals and were out celebrating while others just chose to relax in the outside. This was a big regret of mine that I lost touch with nature when I was in college—these kids really are smarter than me.

It was only 2.4 miles down to the road. I tried to call the hostel to arrange a shuttle but only got a message saying the owner was out hunting. I gave a time well past what it should take us to go downhill. It was a good thing I over estimated the time because this was an incredibly difficult section of trail. I would truly be afraid to go down this trail in the rain. It was a section worthy of the Whites in New Hampshire.

As we got to the road, I saw a car parked waiting. I thought for sure we had a ride to the hostel, but it must have belonged to some day hikers. There was a sign indicating that the hostel was only 0.3 miles down the road. I got my umbrella back out and off we went. As soon as we turned in the drive, we saw a bunch of hikers we knew including Patches and Gnome who we have been trying to catch up with since we left Angels Rest. Dirty R and Grape Stomper were also here—we haven’t seen them since Damascus.

We wanted to shower before dinner but the shuttle to the Home Place was getting ready to leave. Midnight assured us that they were used to smelly hikers so not to worry. We all piled into the suburban and off we went. It’s a good thing we hadn’t showered because it would have been cancelled with the 15 hikers in vehicle for 7. Hikers share a lot of similarities with clowns—-both need to shower more, both scare little kids, and they both pack way more into cars than people think are possible.

I’m not normally a big fried chicken person, but I scarfed it down. In fact, we all scarfed everything down. We tried to keep talking each other into a slower eating pace so we could keep eating. After my third plate, I started bouncing up and down in my chair just like I bounce my bear bag to get it to hold more food. The next two plates I ate seem to indicate this could actually be effective. After we cleaned up everything brought to us: fried chicken, roast beef, Virginia ham. Pinto beans, green beans, cole slaw, mashed potatoes, biscuits, macaroni and cheese, and apple butter along with all the tea, soft drinks, and lemonade we could drink, we called it quits before someone actually burst.

We pulled the clown car into the diner/gas station/grocery store to resupply. The two cashiers stood with jaws open as we continued to climb out of the car. Bunny and I picked up a few items we needed to get to Daleville. I talked it over with a few people about getting a pizza for later, but Bunny heard me and killed the idea. A couple hours later, I was really upset that I hadn’t been more forceful. I cried myself to sleep to keep my mind off of my hunger.

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I didn’t sleep well last night since it was hot, I was hungry, and we were fighting. Bunny got up before me—a somewhat rare event, but not unheard of. She packed her stuff up and decided to help out by retrieving the bear bags. I’m not saying she did anything wrong, but by the time I got involved, there were sticks intertwined with the carabiner and bags that, I’m pretty sure, hadn’t been there when I hung them last night. The bags were stuck hanging about 10 feet in the air. If home is where you hang your food bags, then we have a new permanent address.

After everyone else left, I suggested we move the picnic table off of the covered deck so I could climb up and retrieve the bags. I’ve been told I create some problems for myself by not keeping my mouth closed, and this could have been one of those times, but after the third “can’t” out of her mouth, I referred back to my MexiCAN joke which was the original start of round 1. Once the bags were down, she took off down the trail while I was still packing my stuff up and eating, true dat.

Except for the half mile back up to the trail from the shelter, today was an easy ridge walk. We did cross the eastern continental divide where the water sheds split between the Mississippi River (ultimately the Gulf of Mexico) and the Atlantic Ocean. I was taking my time because I was not feeling well, it was hot, and I was pissed at Bunny for leaving me. I caught up with her at Niday Shelter. Unfortunately, so did everybody else on the trail. This was the most crowded I have seen a shelter yet. There were almost 30 people there trying to get out of the heat. So much for a quiet nap in the shelter (which I desperately needed).

Forty minutes later after trying to sleep on the ground and stretch on the picnic table, I gave up all hopes of rest and recovery. It was another hot day. Even last night when Super Dave dropped us off at 5:30, it was still 85 out. Sweat was pouring out of us. We had already drank several liters of water and neither one of us had peed yet. Not only the old folk were complaining about the weather, but the young whipper snappers were whining as well. That’s the only thing that kept us going, knowing that it wasn’t just us. We were so ticked off that we hadn’t had a spring that we both said we wanted to quit hiking.

Even if we did want to quit, we still had to walk out of the middle of the woods where we currently were. We had one bright spot still in front of us—the Eddie Murphy Monument. Imagine our disappointment when we climbed to the top of the next mountain to find out that is was the Audie Murphy Monument. Audie was the most decorated American soldier of WW II that died in the 70’s. Eddie is the beloved comedian who started out on SNL in the 70’s. We were expecting a holographic Eddie Murphy with his Beverly Hill’s laugh but got a monument detailing Audie’s amazing exploits of saving lives of fellow soldiers and being injured multiple times. The letdown only added to our sour moods.  (For those reading this and believing the presentation as factual, please remember our new indicator of “true dat” not being present after the description—I am, by no means, trying to downplay one of the greatest American War heroes of all time—true dat).

The heat, the arguing, the lack of water, the wanting to quit, the uncertainty of what was happening to Sam, and the disappointment of not seeing an Eddie Murphy monument, all led to us calling for a shuttle to come pick us up at the next road crossing. The trail adventure was coming to a premature end, and, quite possibly, so was our marriage. We still had an hour’s walk ahead of us to get to the road.

We got to the road and all of the people that had been at the shelter at lunch were camped out there. They had decided to not push on to the next shelter since the water was difficult to get to there while we were right next to a nice creek here. They invited us to join them, but we declined because we had a shuttle on the way. We waited for almost 2 hours for the shuttle to show before we gave up. We were down in a valley without cell signal and had no choice but set up camp next to everyone else. They were all in bed by the time we set up our tent at the late hour of 9:30. That damn shuttle not showing up may have just saved our marriage, but by god, I was not hanging a bear bag tonight to completely test fate. We slept with the food in our tent and under our heads—this may be our last chance to see a bear.

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It was glorious being clean and sleeping in a bed until almost 8 without having to decide where to go. Breakfast was even ready for us and I didn’t have to make it (or filter water for it). The return to what everyone else takes for granted and now we feel lucky to have. We were only about 1/2 mile from Dicks Sporting Goods, so we thought we’d take a chance and see if this store had the boots Bunny was looking for. All of the boots were on a shelf that we could get to, but they didn’t have any in her size. We asked the clerk if there might be any more in back but he wasn’t hopeful. Our good fortune continued when he brought back the only pair they had in back and it was Bunny’s size.

We celebrated our good fortune with the second meal of the morning at Red Robin. I’ve never been in one because Curt Rebstock used to make fun of the place to me (or was it Johnny Rockets—I haven’t eaten there, either). If it would have been a little later, we would have had beer—it had to be noon somewhere. After we mailed her old shoes (and a few other things) back home we had time to get caught up on the blog. I think everyone reading this is probably aware that this is where our fighting began and the blog ended.

Most married couples do not spend 31 (that’s 24 & 7 for the mathematically challenged) with each other. It does get to be wearing on the nerves, especially when one of those people is me. As everyone knows, I am generally an unexciteable and pretty laid back dude. It takes a lot to get me riled up (true dat). Some may disagree with that statement, but they know deep in their hearts that I am right. I can say for certain that Bunny will disagree (can I get an “Amen” and a big TRUE DAT?). Truth of the matter is that even I can get on people’s nerves over time—nae, nae, nae, it’s true. Probably not a week goes by that we don’t annoy the piss out of each other in some way (we are married—enough said).

Judge Super Dave picked us up at 4:30 to take us back to the trail. We were very relieved to discover that he is not the type of judge that doesn’t wear clothes under his robes. He was still in a suit having come straight to us from court. We threw everything in his car and began the drive back. He decided to take us through town so we could get a glimpse of Virginia Tech and tell us a little history of the area. One of the big controversies in the area is the new gas pipeline that we encountered along the AT a couple days ago. The installation is proceeding because the consortium was allowed to use “imminent domain” to secure the pipeline route because the gas was supposedly for domestic use. Now they are wanting to extend the route down to the coast in NC so the gas can ship overseas. My castration plan doesn’t sound so bad now! There is much opposition to the pipeline and both sides are lying trying to make a bad situation even worse.

Once back on the trail, we were only planning to go to the first shelter which was only a few miles uphill from where Super Dave dropped us off. The highlight of this section of trail is the Keffer Oak—the largest oak tree along the AT. I’d better cover myself and say the Southern AT because there are people reading doing fact checks on things I say (true dat) and if I do throw something in as a fact, I’d better be right. I repeat, Bunny does not poop in Wal-Mart parking lots.

Just as soon as we got high enough to get a cell signal, Bunny’s son called all upset that the family had turned against him and didn’t want him to join the army. He had been barraged for two days from his grandparents, aunt, and uncle to not join. They talked for well over an hour trying to come up with a solution. In the end, Bunny wanted to go home to help him and I wanted her to call her parents to find out what was happening. I may not have been the most calm in my stating to call home, true dat. Round 2.

Ultimately, we arrived pretty late at the shelter. Blaze and a third Patches were there all spread out thinking they had the place to themselves. We decided to not eat a hot meal since we were both still steaming. Bunny set up our sleeping system (as she does every night) while I hung bear bags—home is where you hang your food bags. Lights out on an empty stomach.

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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.

 

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We were definitely warmer in the tent last night than we were in the shelter the night before. As soon as I got up to deal with water (getting rid of and retrieving) I noticed that the guys in the shelter had put a tarp up over the face. When I went up to visit the privy, New York told me they had built a fire in the fireplace and were toasty all night.

New York got his name because of his accent—there’s no mistaking it for a midwest drawl. He sounds a lot like Matt Damon in “Good Will Hunting” or like Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, or Leonardo DiCaprio (take your pick) in “The Departed.” He hammocked with us last night at Rice Field. The funny thing is that he smokes cigarettes rets while hiking and still hikes faster than us. I’ve got to keep reminding myself that it’s not a race to Katahdin (because if it is, we are losing big time).

Since I started reading about the AT, there has been a place in VA that I heard about called “The Captain’s Place”. It’s just a guy that allows hikers to camp in his yard and sells sodas. Nothing special in that, but what is special is that there is a zip line across Stony Creek to get to his place. There’s always a down side to places like this—he permanently closed last year. As we were walking along the creek, I could see his house and yard, but the zip line is gone. Another iconic place along the trail is no more. At least it’s not like McAfee Knob is closed.

We made it to Bailey Gap Shelter for a lunch break. This was where we were supposed to make it to last night, but we had both run out of steam. We are still in the process of trying to overeat to reduce our pack weight (the many trials of long distance hiking) and were eating our third round of food when Mr Bean joined us for lunch. Mr Bean is from Portland, Maine and his dad works in the call center for LL Bean. We told him of our plans to try to make it to the 100 mile wilderness to hike with our friends, Peter and Marcia from Portland who hiked the trail way back before lightweight gear, trail names, and automobiles were invented. They were true hikers unlike the sissies hiking today with all the ultralight this and that.

The trail getting up to Bailey Gap was steep and tiring, but the trail leading out of it was some of the worst we have encountered so far. It was worthy of our expectations for Pennsylvania—all rocky and tiring. If you didn’t watch every step, there was a good chance of you breaking an ankle, or worse, if you fell. It got Bunny’s ire up to the point where she flat out yelled to no one “the next person I meet that tells me ‘Virginia is easy’ is getting slapped.”

Here comes our appeal for money—the next person we saw was a forest service enforcement officer who approached us at a road crossing and asked if we were enjoying the easy trail in Virginia. Bunny is currently off the trail until we can raise the $100,000 bail.

For all you bootheel raised folk, this is where we need to talk about satire, irony, and jokes in general. Bunny did not slap the officer, in fact, there wasn’t even an officer present. I made that up. It’s called a “joke.” Bunny doesn’t strike anyone (other than me); she doesn’t poop in Wal-Mart parking lots; she doesn’t steal things from buffets (she just takes more than she needs at the time). Bunny often takes the brunt of my joke setups, possibly as much as I do. But no one seems bothered when I make fun of myself or even notice when I praise my wife. I do tend to make fun of people I like. If I don’t make fun of you, I probably don’t like you (or Bunny has told me I can’t say that—she is also the editor of the blog). This blog is a representation of what I am feeling at the time of writing and not a factual account of true events that happen along the way. Most of the time, the entries are completely lacking in facts. If actual events do accidentally appear in this blog, perhaps I need to highlight them in some way. From now on, actual facts will be followed by “true dat” to ease confusion from those readers that have never seen any British originating humor.

As we were approaching a wilderness area along the trail, we got a text from Sam that he was on a bus heading to St Louis to complete his physical for military induction. He had received a text from his grandfather that Israel had just declared war on Russia and Syria and that he should get up in front of everyone of the bus and declare that he wanted to get off the bus immediately. In short, he was freaking out. True dat. Bunny started having a panic attack hearing this, but we couldn’t respond to the message because of poor cell service. We thought WW III had started. Bunny’s response was to immediately quit the trail and get home to her son. True dat. I assured her, if war had broken out, Sam was safest having already been signed up for a non-infantry position (as we had agreed this past weekend).

By the time we got to a spot where we could get signal and Bunny could talk to her son, the situation had calmed down. Apparently, the original story that was relayed to Sam was a possible scenario of events and we were not actually at war. Sam had not stood up in front of the bus and declared himself a coward, but his stress level was very high so his heart rate did not calm down to the point where they would accept him until he had and EKG. Sam was safe, Bunny was calm, and there is no world war, but Trump is still president. I keep hoping that we wake up from our dream (like Pam on “Dallas” when she only dreamt Bobby was dead) to find out we have someone stable as president, like Weird Al Yankovich. True dat.

Mr Bean was already at War Spur Shelter when we got there, along with Tortoise and Easy Pete (there’s always a Pete or Peter around us on every trip, true dat). Easy Pete told us that there was a forest fire around McAfee Knob and that the trail has been closed. The ATC has been shuttling hikers around the area. He read about it on the facebook page for 2018 thru hikers—it was on the internet, it must be true. Let’s recap; the Captain’s Place is closed, Trump is President, and the most iconic spot on the AT (McAfee Knob) is closed to thru hikers—Pamela Ewing, wake up now!

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Back when we were getting a monthly delivery for Hardon Himstedt (I’m sure the reason the mailman got a hernia was from laughing so hard every month), I was always the first one home every day to check the mail. I, strategically, never brought in the mail. This is in the day of plain brown wrappers which were just magazine sleeves, well before shrink wrapped plastic covers. If Hardon had a delivery, this piece of mail did make it into the house. About 5 days later, my dad would complain at the dinner table that all the other guys at work had received their magazines a week ago and he was going to call the post office if it didn’t show up soon. Miracle of miracles, the magazine was always delivered the next day.

This had to be in the late 70’s because the only thing I remember from those magazines was an article where Jimmy Carter admitted to lusting after women in his heart—well before cigars and Bill Clinton made it into the White House. Oh, and staples. A few years later when I started my personal investigations, I was relieved to discover that women didn’t have staples in their stomachs (also before the days of belly button piercings). There’s absolutely no connection to this memory and our current hike on the AT other than I don’t drown out my inner voice while walking every day, so I am able to dig up some fond memories.

Last night was cold. Maybe we sent our winter gear home too soon after all. There was only one other person in the shelter with us, a German from Munich going by the name of Fire Beast (which translates as Party Animal). There were another 5 people tenting around the shelter. With all these people around, who do you think was the last to leave the shelter? Who guessed party animal?  Wrong! Bunny’s back.  It was us.

Not too long after we started on our way, we ran into a couple of guys that were sobo coming off of the Allegheny Trail. Robert and Chris from the northeast, but Robert has been transplanted to Pearisburg. We stopped and talked with them for quite a bit. We tried to convince them to quit their jobs and go hiking full time (especially when we discovered Robert was a pharmacist). Every thru-hiker could benefit from a pharmacist companion with questionable ethics. Unfortunately, Robert seems to hold himself to unquestionable standards. I hope we don’t have to resort to “self medicating” as so many seem to on the trail.

While in town, I kept seeing “stop the pipeline’ signs in people’s windows. I thought “give it a rest, the Keystone is a done deal—we’ve even had a spill already.” It wasn’t until we walked a couple more miles that I finally pieced together that there is a natural gas pipeline going in that is going to cross the AT. Generally speaking, I’m not against pipelines. I’m against the companies putting them in that aren’t held accountable when the pipelines fail. I’m all for public castration of every CEO, executive board member, and politician that support the pipeline and then run to the US government for clean up assistance. OK, maybe public castration is a bit extreme, but I do want to see them ball-less if they expect everyone else to clean up their mess while they pocket millions. On certain issues, I can be very inflexible.

There was one protestor standing on the trail talking to people. I shared my views (minus the castration method of compliance). I was expecting a little bit more energy in the protest, but, apparently, there are a few people peacefully sitting in trees. What bothered me most was that the AT was chewed up for about a quarter mile from all the four-wheeler tracks leading to the protest site. I accept that there has to be a few scars along the trail from civilization. There are power lines that cross and roads, I can deal with that. It’s still amazing that we have over 2000 miles of relative wilderness so close to the eastern population centers.

Even with the cold of last night, we noticed much more green today even at elevation. There were several small flowers out and lots of birds singing, but still no blooming rhododendrons. My biggest fear is that we will have weather just like Missouri—5 months and 28 days of winter with 3 days of spring sandwiched between the sweltering heat of summer. Ticks are just around the corner.

How long did we manage to stick to my new 7 day plan to get to Daleville? One day! We ended up cutting 4 miles off of my day 2 plan. Maybe we’ll be able to put in an 18 mile day tomorrow to make up the difference. When we got to Pine Swamp Branch Shelter, there were already people inside and a tent set up outside. This shelter was shut down last year because of gypsy moth infestation which killed all the big trees around it. I know someone was killed by a falling tree at a shelter last year and I just assume this is the place.

Bunny decided she wanted to live on the edge. She said we should tent tonight. Of course, she’s not worried, the dead trees are called “widow makers.” I checked the area carefully and only noticed two dead trees in the area—one already had a tent set up beneath it and the other had a hammock tied to it. As long as we stay away from these guys, we should be fine.

EFG

We had a room full last night with Bunny Tracks back and her driver, Sam, sleeping on the floor at the foot of the bed. We would have sprung for a bed for Sam, but it looks like he might be joining the Army special forces. We felt it best if we started toughening him up. Sam hasn’t been happy for a while and hasn’t been showing any interest in college just yet. He’s 6’3”, buff, and smart but doesn’t normally have self motivation. It was his idea to join the military, but I think this is an excellent idea for him and know he will do well.

Bunny brought back some new things and I have been carrying some of her stuff. We also had a good amount of food which I would have shipped ahead if it was going to be just me for another few days, but since I knew she was headed back, I kept it all. I’ve come up with a 7 day plan to get us to Daleville, VA. The short version of what I’m trying to say is that we hadn’t packed anything up yet.

From personal experience, I know Bunny is a slow mover in the morning. I got up and went out to the kitchen to have a cup of coffee with the other hikers that were already up getting ready to head out. As soon as I got comfortable, the alarms went off in Bunny’s head which automatically fire when I am having a good time without her. I accepted my scolding and packed up.

Sam took us to breakfast. Let’s phrase that differently; Sam drove us to breakfast and I paid. Then we hit the post office before he dropped us off at the trailhead. Bunny was very worried about him driving all the way back to MO by him self. I tried to convince her that if the military is considering him for special forces where they will make him into a feared human weapon, he’s probably capable of driving alone.

I will have to get used to having Bunny back on the trail. Gnome and I have hiked together for the last 10 days and he is positive and doesn’t complain. Bunny’s favorite word at the start of every hiking day is “can’t.” She definitely doesn’t have any MexiCAN blood in her. She was not happy about her pack weight. I don’t know what she has in it to make it so heavy; we’ll have to do another shakedown when we get to the next zero.

Being a living PlayDough fun factory isn’t as fun as it sounds, especially if the only shape is round and the only color is beige. Maybe that’s something I can invent—inserts for different shapes and dies to ingest to change the color. It would be much more entertaining if we could put out pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, green clovers, and blue diamonds; a lucky charms poop fest. Bunny has obviously gotten back just in time; I have almost turned feral with dreams of throwing fun colored shapes of poop at people who annoy me.

The walk was uneventful today. We were the first at the shelter and not very late considering we didn’t start hiking until after 11. The closest we came to excitement is when we were stopped by a forest ranger telling us to stay on the trail. I’m going to shorten his name to Bob because I know I’ll just butcher the spelling otherwise. His name is of Nigerian origin and it means the return of the father. He was the first male child born into his family after his grandfather died. The main reason I’m going into this detail is that today is his 16th wedding anniversary with his lovely wife, Samantha. I hope he gets to have a special  time celebrating tonight.

We got the most colorful sunset we have had so far. Bunny has reverted to an inside mammal in the 10 short days she was home. Her blood has thinned and her skeleton softened. She was under her quilt questioning whether the new sleeping pads are thick enough when people stopped by the shelter telling us about the colorful sunset. Since she hadn’t performed her final water expulsion for the night, we got up to go see. We’ve also got a full moon tonight if the clouds pass.

EFG

When I talked to Bunny last Sunday, she was planning on waiting until her brother was coming home but didn’t know when exactly that would be. She wanted me to wait up to 6 days in Pearisburg—a non starter for me. When I talked to her on Wednesday, it looked like her brother wasn’t coming home until May-ish so she could be back by Friday—a triple zero I can handle.

Patches finally caught up with us on Wednesday, as did Gnome. We did all the usual zero day things: laundry, eat, resupply, shower, go to the circus, eat some more. Wait a minute, go to the circus? Patches found a flyer for a traveling circus so we thought that might be a fun change of pace.

The early show started at 5 so we headed over around 4. As soon as we arrived, we started questioning the appropriateness of our presence. With the purchase of every adult ticket, you get 2 free children admissions. With our 8 adult tickets, the tent was about 16 kids light. To try and not stand out too much, we took seats slightly off center in the back two rows—that is, rows 5 & 6. All we were missing was a police officer acting as a chaperone for the prison outing.

Since we were early, there was plenty of open seating. One little boy painted up as Spider-Man started to climb the bleachers heading straight to Gnome. PC yelled “Don’t come any closer kid or you’ll violate the terms of his parole.” This perked up all the parents in the area. We denied the terms of parole and told PC to lay off the pedophile jokes in the children’s circus.

Surprisingly, the Lewis and Clark Circus was very entertaining overall. The snow cone salesman before the show turned out to be a contortionist which provided the most cringeworthy moments of the show when he locked his arms behind his back and stepped through them. They had also found a rope climbing woman who, may or may not, have perfected her act on a pole wearing a little less clothing than tonight.

I decided to try a discounted chiropractic session (the owner of the hostel is a chiropractor). She gave me an adjustment and put a tens unit on my lower back (the extra 15# I carried out to Dismal Falls, aka beer, might have been a bit much for me). She analyzed my walk to see if I was doing something out of the ordinary which might be stressing my Achilles’ tendon.

Friday evening saw Bunny’s triumphant return to the AT. Her son drove her back to Angels Rest and then chauffeured us around for the evening including dinner at a Mexican restaurant (rather than Korean as planned—time zones remain a mystery to them as it kind of involves math).

I have gotten sucked into the vortex which is Angels Rest Hiker Hostel. This is an ideal location to take a few days off. The owner bought her neighbor’s land with the ironic intention of getting more privacy. Doc Peppa then decided she could save money by having hikers do work for stay. Now she has THE most hiker friendly place we have been to and getting better every day.

Lady Bug and Stickers left on Monday (as planned). Postcard stuck around until Tuesday morning and I got here Tuesday afternoon. Since I didn’t stop to eat while hiking into Pearisburg, her gift of M&Ms didn’t survive long (Thank you, Postcard). Mizman is a week or two behind. He and is girlfriend visited with us in Whyteville until Bunny’s car was ready.

Patches? What happened to Patches? She decided to slack pack 20 miles on Thursday so she could catch up to Postcard before she finishes in a few weeks. The “plan” was to then jump on the trail Friday and move fast. So? Patches is simultaneously 20 miles ahead of Bunny and me while standing in the kitchen eating her 5th meal for the day at 4p. Plans may change, but some people don’t.

EFG

I blame Little Blue for me getting out on this day. It’s all Blue’s fault. He’s a dead man if I ever see him again. The most satisfying part of the day was when we left him standing on the side of the road in the rain waiting for Sunshine (the girl and the sun, both).

Neville thanked me for convincing Blue to come to the hostel. I think her actual words were “Whatever your name is, thanks for convincing Blue to stay here. He’s been so much fun. I don’t care if I ever see you again, but Blue was such a joy.” As I said before, he’s dead to me.

Initially, Vagabond Jack wanted to get up and hit the road before 8 (which is breakfast time at Woods Hole). I’m not a chicken abortion eater, never have been. I’m working on it. Neville uses farm fresh organic eggs that she gets from her own chickens. They still taste like abortions, but I discovered Sriracha sauce can make even poop taste good (just guessing, I haven’t actually tried this yet). It poured all morning. Everyone stayed and ate and contemplated taking zeros. Only Gnome was smart enough to do so.

Blue convinced me to NOT take a zero because he wanted to catch up to Geo, Summit, and Bear Foot and ditch all of us. I’m assuming that he did catch up with them. I know that he did ditch us. The longer we waited, the harder it rained. Finally, PC and I had waited long enough and decided to go. The only thing I learned from today was that the ultra-light umbrellas that our angel, Alice, sent us will work out fine on the trail. I learned how to attach them to my pack so I can still use my trekking poles. The biggest problem that I ran into is that my umbrella is ahead of me waiting at Angels Rest.

We stopped at Doc’s Knob Shelter to get in out of the rain for a few minutes. We met Duracell there—I just assumed she had red hair from the name and I was right. I told her the only other person I know with that name is an older guy that I met in Spain last year. I don’t think she liked being compared to an old man.

There were no views today—they were all blocked by fog. There was standing water in the trail the entire way. The rain penetrated everything on me and what I was carrying. I wore my rain kilt today and it did help keep my crotch dry (as long as the boys are dry and happy and I can keep the water off of my glasses, I can survive—not thrive, survive). Once my kilt was off, my shirt was so wet that I couldn’t tell that I had been dry. All in all, it was a miserable day and the only person to blame is Little Blue—purveyor of misery.

As we got near the road, we discovered that PC didn’t have a phone signal. At least he has a phone, I don’t even have that. Down below, we could hear voices. It was Vagabond Jack, Curb, Stylo, and Blue. They had already called for the shuttle to Angels Rest so it was not an issue after all. When the shuttle arrived, Blue couldn’t decide what to do because this was his first day hiking with Sunshine. He contemplated going on and asked if that would make him an asshole if he didn’t wait for her. We all said yes. He had no choice but continue standing in the cold rain as we drove away…sweet paybacks!

Hot showers, laundry, Mexican food, a dry bed, and knowledge of an impending zero while Blue is camping in the rain tonight makes me feel better. Add in an unexpected surprise from Postcard and life is sweet once again. Postcard left me a big bag of M&M with peanuts. I thought I might have to pack my fears out of town once again, but I ended up eating the entire bag before dinner.

EFG