As Stickers was performing the final preparations for bed which include mouse proofing the shelter (tearing sheets of toilet paper off of the roll and stuffing them in the corners to keep the mice occupied through the night) the rat made his first appearance. Stickers was standing in the corner with the roll of tp in one hand and a single sheet in the other. The rat popped up, grabbed the single sheet out of his hand, paused, returned the single sheet, grabbed the roll of tp out of his other hand, saluted, and dropped below the sleeping platform. We were hoping this would be enough to keep the rodents happy for the night. For safety reasons, we all agreed to not look under the platform no matter how much noise we heard. Nature was on our side and drowned out all the noise with high winds, pouring rain, thunder & lightening, and Lady Bug’s and Bunny Track’s occasional screams at the storm.
Lady Bug did make an exit during a calm in the night’s weather activities. She had been deeply buried in her bag when Stickers and I put up the tarp across the entrance of the shelter and couldn’t find her way out. I told her to “come to the light” at our end of the shelter. She made it out and back quickly enough then.
Not too soon after that, the storm awoke with greater intensity of both wind and rain. The shelter was a very old log cabin type with almost no kinking left. I woke up to what I believed to be Lady Bug sleep walking. She was standing over me saying that her tent blew down. I said everything will be fine, just lay back down and we’ll find it in the morning. A little later, I rolled over and there was another body between me and Prof. Lady Bug hadn’t been sleepwalking at all. Zellow had actually had her tent blow down in the 50mph winds that were coming through.
Now Bunny started in. Everyone knows of her fear of storms if they have ever slept within 10 miles of us. Her fear is so bad she converted one of my dogs from being a brave storm dog to getting her to actually lock herself in the closet whenever an electrical storm passed through (I’m firmly convinced that this led to Nutiket’s premature death due to shame). Bunny started rolling over to my side and elbowing me complaining about the rain. She kept insisting our sleeping bag was soaked. I just told her to calm down and quit hallucinating because I was perfectly dry. When we got up in the morning, her side was drenched and my was dry as a whistle. No harm done.
I really like hiking with Stickers and Lady Bug for several reasons: they are fun to talk with; we hike at about the same pace; it takes us about an hour and a half to get ready in the morning while it takes them an hour and 35 minutes. That means we aren’t always the last ones on the trail anymore. It only gets better if Patches is hiking with us. We look like fast moving old people then.
The Brady kids were already on the trail and heading towards Hot Springs to take a zero tomorrow. We have no idea where Patches is other than somewhere in front of us—about once every 4 or 5 days she decides she needs to be putting in more miles per day and jumps ahead, but then we catch up with her the next time we come to food (be it a restaurant, trail magic, or a resupply in a town). If she’s not eating, she is walking slower because of all the extra food weight she is carrying. We hit the trail just as Stickers and Lady Bug were finishing packing with the intention of staying at Deer Park Mountain Shelter about 3 miles shy of Hot Springs. We were taking our time since we knew we only had 10 miles to go. (We are definitely getting stronger because 8 mile days used to be a full day and now 10’s seem light.). It was already 9.
Bunny checked the weather when we got to the summit of Bluff Mountain and the forecast for snow has increased. We decided then that we were going to just hike on in to Hot Springs today because, when it comes to snow and freezing temps, “Homey don’t do that anymore.” We would keep hiking to the shelter as planned and when Stickers and Lady Bug caught up with us, we’d tell them of our change of plans and try to convince them to come in also.
Not a lot of people were out today. Fabio and Rose passed us as well as a girl on spring break. We were hiking at a good clip for us (almost 2 mph) so, with breaks, we made the shelter at a little past 2. Fabio and Rose already had their tent set up. Stickers walked in right behind us. Not 5 minutes later, Gazelle walked in—she had done almost 16 miles today once her mom and sister left. They had a good time, but one night was enough to settle their curiosity about the AT. A couple of day hikers had left some trail magic (aka free food) at the shelter which was quickly handled by us.
With the mention of snow, everyone decided town sounded great since it was so early (everyone, that is, except Gazelle who felt guilty at the thought of showers two days in a row). When Lady Bug came into the shelter, we twisted her arm into continuing on after she had a rest. Bunny and I headed on down to the hostel to get settled in. Stickers and Lady Bug got into the hostel about 20 minutes behind us.
Group consensus, first order of business was not showers, was not laundry, but was the hiker mantra—food! We went down to town to the tavern for beer and burgers. Featured on the door of the tavern was the AT Hiker Burger which was 18 oz of hamburger. They had me at AT. Stickers is always eating and always hungry, I was sure he’d go for it. I told Bunny to order one and I’d finish what she couldn’t eat. Lady Bug is too dainty, so I knew 18 oz was out of her size range. No one! No one would order one other than me. (I have an ace in the hole—I used to weigh over 270# and I still have the stomach that created that body.)
The waitress told us that only 3 have been ordered this year, but I was the only person that actually ate all the the fries and cleaned my plate entirely. Not only that, Stickers and I went to another bar to order dessert while the ladies headed back to shower. I finished eating while Bunny showered. After my shower, I was done for the day.
EFG