Start: Thunder Hill (AT mi 772.2). Stop: Middle Creek Campground (AT mi 758.5). Today’s miles: 13.7 miles. Total AT mileage: 1434.6 miles
I slept so much better last night. I think it was the combination of the lack of sleep from the last few nights mixed with the beer I had with dinner. I was grateful! However, I wasn’t thrilled about a 06:07 “Miss Courtney, breakfast is ready” wake up notice. Lord have mercy it was hard to not be snappy. Lauren would have laughed had she been present. I sounded like a broody teenager, I couldn’t help it.
I ate blueberry pancakes, the best I’ve had so far.. and you know that’s the truth if I was cranky as hell while eating them. After eating, I packed up real quick and got ready to go. Jerzy and Satellite were slackpacking today and sharing the shuttle with me. We all three got our stuff together and left just before 7am.
I was dropped off on the Blue Ridge Parkway road crossing by Thunder Hill, just like yesterday, but today I headed south. I was practically right at the summit of Apple Orchard Mountain, well, a whole 0.3 miles from it. Jerzy and Satellite were getting dropped off a bit farther south and coming back northbound, so we knew we’d be passing each other soon.
The trail was misty, like yesterday, except less damp feeling. The clouds seemed to lift quickly and then the heat kicked in. I passed the guys within the first couple miles, and then two other hikers going my direction appeared. We ended up leap frogging with each other the rest of the day. Their names are BookWorm and TwoHats.
I started listening to a podcast, a new thing for me.. and, naturally, I got sucked in. So I walked and listened and enjoyed the surroundings. Luckily TwoHats was ahead of me and knocking out all of the spider webs. At 10 I stopped to eat half of my sandwich brought from town. I was hungry! Sadly, they messed up my order, so my sub was cheese, lettuce, mushrooms, and onions. I hate onions. I ended up picking those all off and eating the sandwich anyway, but it sucked. Very disappointing.
While I was eating, I was passed by ButterFingers who remembered me from The Whites when Andrea was with me. We chatted a bit, I felt bad I couldn’t remember him, but then he carried on and I finished eating. A couple hours later, I ran into all three guys at a shelter on trail. We all ate lunch. Butterfingers and I talked about The Whites, and then I finally remembered him when he mentioned his girlfriend, Clementine! We all leap frogged each other the day it poured on us and Andrea and I did 15 miles to Ethan Pond Shelter! They were there when we had to climb down the waterfall because it was “part of the trail.” Hahaha, we also ran into them in town when we got breakfast a couple days later! Small world.
We carried on, Butterfingers passed me early, then so did TwoHats. And then on top of a mountain with no name, I caught them both as they were taking a breather and checking their phones because they had service. I kept going, I was listening to the podcast and needed to know what was going on. On the downhill, at a road crossing, I stopped when I saw a water cache. Hmmm. Interesting. I still had over half a liter, but I checked my app to see if I would be needing more before getting to the shelter in 3.4 miles. I decided I didn’t, so I didn’t take any so that it would be available to anyone else coming.
When I looked for the white blaze to figure out which way the trail went, I saw a sign. All I could see from where I was, was “Ice cream. Milkshakes. Bacon Cheeseburgers.” There was more, but while I was slowly walking towards it, deciding if I had time to go to this magical place, since it was only 2pm.. Butterfingers appeared. He came over to read the sign, too. We look it up on the app and realize you have to get shuttled to this campground that has all of these goodies.
Then, we realized THIS is the campground BookWorm and TwoHats, along with the their other 2 friends I haven’t met yet, were heading to!
The 2 showed up within minutes. They tell us their shuttle was on the way to get them! We decide to stay and see if we can bum a ride, too..And then while waiting, we both decided that we’d stay at the campground tonight! Why not!?
We were less than 4 miles from the “goal” shelter, we’d have gotten there by 4 at the latest and just sat around with the bugs for hours. This was way more fun! Tomorrow could be 17 or 20 miles, but with either of those, the following day would still put me in Daleville on time, so who cares?! This is way more fun!
We all piled into the truck that came for us, and then when we were “checking in” decided last minute to split the 6 person cabin instead of all individually getting campsites. Works for me! I got a soda and some candy, paid my portion of the cabin, and then once everyone was settled, we checked out our digs for the night. Our digs with AC. Hell. Yes. The guys all went to shower and do laundry, I’m sitting at the pool. I swam a bit, but the water is cold enough to not be able to stay in too awful long. But it is enjoyable!
I stayed at the pool for a couple of hours, I swam with Blueberry and Soundscape for a bit of that.They’re the other 2 hikers that know TwoHats and BookWorm. Some time later, I decided to take a shower and get dinner. A huge storm cloud was rolling in, I didn’t want to test my luck. I put my clothes in the cabin and grabbed my stuff to go shower. The guys were going to do laundry and agreed to let me throw my undies and sports bra in the dryer with their clothes (this is what I swam in).
I ate a bacon cheeseburger and some fries. It was absolutely delish! We hung out in the little arcade room while laundry was going, before finally heading back to the cabin around 7. The campground was hosting karaoke by the pool, and I’ve never heard so many people butcher some early 2000 pop/rock songs! Haha it was hysterical at first, and then, when we were trying to sleep and could still hear the godawful singing, eh, no longer funny.
Here’s to hoping we all fall asleep soon. I’ve got a 17 mile day tomorrow, and it’ll be a “late” start. They don’t serve breakfast until 8am and then it’s a guess for them as to when they’ll have time to shuttle us back to the trail. Hmmm. They didn’t mention that when they brought us in here! Oh well. Nothing to do about it now but hope we get started at a decent time! Goodnight y’all!