Date: 2008-04-18
From: Brown Mountain Creek Shelter

To: Punchbowl Shelter
Miles today: 10.0
Weather: clear sky

I'm writing from a shady spot under a footbridge crossing Peddler Creek. It's just after noon and we're stopping for lunch and a rest, hoping some of this heat will ease up before heading uphill toward Punchbowl. There's also little water from here on today, so eating and filling up with water is the plan.Last night walking into camp along Brown Mountain Creek I was reminded of hiking along Bark Camp Creek back home in Kentucky. The scenery and terrain was very similar, very pretty.The Brown Mountain Creek area was a settlement for freed slaves after the Civil War until around 1920. They were sharecroppers and farmed the land. There were remnants of their community all along the way. This morning our walk continues to take us along the creek for a couple of miles. As we turned to leave the side of the creek we crossed a footbridge over a beautiful waterfall, falling into a very tempting pool¢¦.just right for a swimming hole. But alas, it was early in the day and really not hot enough yet for a dip.We wound down a hill until we came to Swapping Camp Creek. Tigger, Owl, Roo and I stopped to do a little foot repair work and stock up on water. Roo was in heaven. She doesn't always get the point of our rest breaks, but she got the idea of this one. She had a blast splashing around while we had nice restful break. It was great!From there our path wound us around the Lynchburg reservoir... again looked a lot like Woods Creek lake back home. Wouldn't have been surprised to see Jill and the kids cruising by in a canoe....well, maybe a little. Did see a couple fishermen. We passed the dam and continued on to the footbridge. The path was very nice.Tuna Cheese casserole is ready... more later.The lunch break today was excellent, but maybe should have lasted longer. We started up Rice mountain and the heat was horrible. Owl and I walked slowly to keep from getting overheated and conserve water. The first part was really pretty. We saw more and more trees starting to bud out, more flowers, more butterflies. The last couple of days we have seen several wild turkeys and heard owls at night. Soaring actually saw an owl during the day yesterday. Our 'Owl' is getting lots of pictures for school.After the summit of Rice Mountain we had one more peak after another...seemed to go on and on. By the time we reached the Blue Ridge Parkway our water was dry. We had hoped to refill from a spring at the road, but it proved to be dry. We had 1/2 mile uphill to Punchbowl shelter. We didn't really want to stop here for the night because we had heard the water was tea-colored, but it was the only water source in the area. And sure enough...it is tea-colored. But now it's purified tea-colored water.We have one other camper here tonight. Not a through hiker, a little unusual guy. This is a night I'm very glad we are a group of four with a good watchdog. We didn't meet any other thru hikers today, just one section hiker, Four Pots Short.Tomorrow we only have about ten miles to go, but our ride into our zero day won't arrive until 6:30 PM, so we have plenty of time. We are going to learn from our lesson today and start out early, try to get the hard stuff done before it gets too hot. Eventually we'll figure out how to do this. Despite our inexperience, God is carrying us through and we are learning as we go.The shelter tonight is next to a pond (the source of the tea water), so we are being lulled to sleep with the sound of frogs... lots of frogs... very vocal frogs. It's kinda neat.Rabbit, Owl and RooJoshua 1:9