Date: 2003-07-13
From: Dripping Rock

To: Humpback Rock Picnic Area
Miles today: 4.0

Did you ever have a day that you meticulously planned, and then have ittake a complete left hand turn? Well, this is what happened today!The day has been a dizzing mess of ruined plans and serendipity, and itturned out wonderfully!   We woke once more to a fabulous breakfast prepared by Lois and herhusband. We had a blast visiting with our section hiker friends from lastnight, Jeff and Sam. These are the nicest guys! They have been sectionhiking for the last few years and I loved trading stories with them. After saying our goodbyes, Earl drove us up to the trail to continuehiking North. Bumpkin has a speaking engagement in Waynesboro on Monday sowe are jumping up 15 miles to make her deadline, and we will come back inthe middle of the week to catch that section.   From the moment we got on the trail, things went haywire. We went up areally steep, rocky mountain that seemed to never end. When we got up tothe top, there was a huge, tall, scary, dangerous rock outcropping. Itlooked like a giant had dropped a handful of big rocks into a haphazardpile, and when we lost the white blazes, we ended up going around the hill.We looked up and there were the blazes leading us right over the top!! Ofthat dangerous pile of rocks!! I mean, you could break a leg...or worse!!And there has to be at least 25 rattlesnakes in there!! Well, to make a longstory short, we went over it slowly and carefully. I threw my pack down theside and painstakingly picked my way down, mostly on my rear!Luckily, I didn't break a leg or meet any rattlesnakes face to face, but Ididn't have any desire to ever do that again!!   When we got to the bottom, I looked up and realized we were back where wehad started. I told Bumpkin that we had a problem, but she assuredme that we were fine. We started down a long, steep, rocky trail and I keptseeing things that looked awfully familiar! I kept asking Bumpkin if sherecognized any of this and she said no..... so down we went. We were almostat the bottom when Bumpkin offered to run down the rest of the way to makesure we weren't going South by mistake. Fifteen minutes later she came uppanting heavily and said,"Guess what...we are going the wrong way."Which meant.....we had to go back up that awful mountain! Well, I said manycolorful words til both Bumpkin and I got so tickled that we were laughinghysterically. We may be a mess, but we sure do have a good time!   When we finally got to the turnoff to the blue-blazed trail that goesdown to HumpBack Rocks, we had been hiking for over 4 hours and had covereda mile and a half. You can already see where the day is going! However,Bumpkin and I have a saying that helps to keep us from being stressed outabout miles and time....we are exactly where we are supposed to be.   Which makes the next event all the more interesting.....We walked down to the Rocks and found ourselves at a large picnic area.After unsuccessfully searching for a trail to take, we collapsed onto apicnic table to take stock of our day. The area near us had some picnic-ersenjoying lunch with a 91 year old woman. We heard a crash and looked overto see the woman on the ground....she had fallen. With my heart in my throatI started running toward them while Bumpkin started digging for her firstaid kit. When I got to her, after looking her over carefully, we picked herup and sat her back in her chair. She had cut her arm up a lot on thegravel, and was understandably very shaken. I was too! I was so afraidthat she had broken something! Bumpkin had some first-aid supplies, so wehelped patch her her up and then spent a few minutes talking to her family.They were wonderful people and ended up making a donation to Bumpkins PolioPlus cause. All ended well, but you know.....if we hadn't gotten lost onthat mountain, we w! ouldn't have been there to help.   After all the excitement, we were still looking for the trail, and wecame upon a man that had thru-hiked in 2001. His name is TurfHead and heended up being the neatest guy! He helped us look for the trail, and througha convaluted series of decisions and conversations, we decided to go threemiles down the Parkway to the Humpback Rocks Visitor Center in hopes offinding the trail we were looking for.   Well, TurfHead and Casey, hisbeautiful border collie, offered to take us down there. He plied us withcold Dr. Peppers, so how could we refuse! When we got to the visitorscenter, we found a full scale exhibit on the way life used to be lived inthe Blue Ridge Mountains, including a working farm and cabin.   Well, wouldn't you know...on Sunday afternoons there is live Old-Timemusic on the porch of the cabin and before you knew it, the three of us werestretched out on the grass under a tree listening to the musicians. It waspeaceful beyond belief! After a while, the rest of the musicians showed upin the form of a young brother and sister playing the violin and guitar.After noticing the trouble they were having, I went up and tuned her 1/4violin and his 1/2 guitar. It was so much fun to talk to them, and theyplayed wonderfully. I knew I was supposed to be hiking, but who could passthis up! THe rest of the afternoon flew by as we enjoyed the music, sunshineand company of our new friends, TurfHead and Casey.   Well, as we helped the musicians carry their instruments back to theircars, it occured to us that it was supper time and that the chance forhiking today had passed us up. Oh well, we are flexible! We decided to goahead into Waynesboro for dinner. We took TurfHead to dinner to thank himfor the trail magic, and had a wonderful time! He told us about his job asassistant superintendant at a golf corse, and we all traded trail stories.The evening came to an end too quickly and our new friends had to head home.I tried to convince TurfHead to let me kidnap Casey, but alas, he would havenone of that! :)   Well, today didn't turn out anyting like it was supposed to, but we wereexactly where we were supposed to be. Tomorrow, we have made plans to goback out and hike what we were supposed to do today. Who knows what willhappen, but it promises to be an adventure!!Love, Anna aka Mud Buttwww.trailjournals.com------------------------------Local access to PocketMail mobilee-mail now available in Europe, NorthAmerica & Australia http://www.pocketmail.com