Let’s start with the most entertaining part of the day – arriving at the shelter to find a kid with crutches who is asking people if they know what a stress fracture is because he thinks be might have one. The crutches are propped up against the wall and he’s boasting of his plans to do 25 miles tomorrow. In addition, he is planning on “sending home my cooking system and getting really lightweight because it’s all extra ounces on my feet.” Easily the most ridiculously stupid stuff I’ve heard on the trail. This is one of the guys I mentioned yesterday who we saw just outside Damascus planning on 26 mile days, seems to have worked out well. More people showed up a few minutes later and there was even more talk of sending home ridiculous items like the rain cover for one guys pack, someone asked “have you ever had it in the rain without the cover?” of course he hadn’t. The guy even said he thought the water might soak through the pack, but he was goig to get rid of the cover anyway. Pretty easy to see why there’s a 70% failure rate for thru-hiking once you see the people doing it.
With that out of the way, I slept really well last night considering it was a cheap motel bed. Two nights in a row in a real bed of any kind sure beats the sleeping bag and mat. The restaurant that should have had the one pound burger was open for breakfast so I had some real food. Strider needed his mail drop so he had to get a taxi, I went along for the ride and we eventually ended up back on the trail just before noon. It was back to being hot humid and really sweaty hiking weather. The trail alternated between being in the woods and going through open grasslands. There were a couple of stretches just over a mile long that cut through private property – a rarity for the AT.
Right before a steep mile long climb I came upon a couple of coolers sitting along the trail, looked like more trail magic, especially when I got closer and a sign on top said, “TRAIL MAGIC SODA.” There was one big problem though – the coolers were empty. The only thing worse than not finding any trail magic is finding used up trail magic! Still, I made it up the hill and into camp. The water source was a bit sketchy here tonight – the spring was barely flowing and I bad to scoop water up from the pool rather than letting it flow directly into the bottles. People still talking about dumb stuff – MUST start camping more!