Date: 2019-03-15
From: Morgan Stewart Shelter

To: West Dover Road 
Miles today: 8.4
Weather: clear sky

I woke up at 2am to potty. I stepped out of my tent to see the two hikers who joined us last night had left! They must have walked the 1 mile back to their car. It was super windy, and I didn¢t feel like they had the right clothing for overnighting. Packing up and getting breakfast took forever. This was Baby Girls first overnight, and she had no system.  It was 9:05am before we stepped a foot on trail. We carefully hiked down to that same parking place where our two visitors had parked their vehicle the night before. There was Papa Big Swig! He took our big packs, gave us our slack packs, and my dog. After a quick run for pop we were on our way.  Baby Girl took the lead. She¢s become quite the hiker! After all of those tears about overnighting, she had a blast! She¢s already planning for our next one.  The terrain wasn¢t horrible today regarding UPs and DOWN¢s, but the ice and melting snow made everything slippery. I went down a boiler just right, and BOOM!!! Down went McGinty. Baby Girl laughed as my poles went flying right off my wrists. I hurt my ribs.  It was lunchtime when we came to a wooden bridge. There was a handrail on one side and just open bridge on the other. The sound of rushing water was so inviting! We let our feet dangle off the side of the bridge and enjoyed our PB&J right there. Seylor had a pouch of chicken with some dry food. We saw another hawk after lunch. I¢ve been trying to get a hawk picture in flight. I¢ve decided it¢s impossible. I have several of him sitting in a tree. Our very next DOWN after the hawk was a rough one. Snow is melting, but there¢s still just enough ice to make it dangerous. Baby Girl went down and it brought her to tears. She¢s tough like Nama though. She stood up and shook it off. We hiked on. There were many water crossings today. Seylor loved them all! She especially loved Nuclear Lake. It was semi frozen, and she went for a little swim. It had to be soooo cold, but she cane out tail wagging!  Hiking around Nuclear Lake was nice. There was a cool breeze coming off the lake. I enjoyed that very much as it had turned into a hot hiking day. There¢s always wildlife activity around water too. We watched a big group of sparrows take to flight, two ducks chase each other, and another skein if geese fly overhead.  From the lake we turned away and started going UP. We heard gunshots again. They actually got closer and louder. Lots of gunshots. I finally decide they were close enough that I should yell. I did yell. I yelled ¢WE ARE HIKERS OVER HERE!¢ I yelled several times. Baby Girl was scared. We met a local SOBO day hiker and she was a little rattled too. It felt unsafe so I called the police.  I¢m not one to just call the police, but we weren¢t sure if we should hunker down and hide, or get out of there.  Turns out we were right beside a gun club. I was a little embarrassed, but they were kind to me on the phone. We all went about our merry ways in a much happier mood! Just before we made it to our pickup location we had to walk through a swamp of sorts. It was a very large area of about ankle deep water with large chunks of ice floating in it. To be honest, that cold wetness felt good on these sore feet.  Until Next Time Blue Raccoon (2018/2019)Where¢s your faith?