Date: 2018-05-30
From: Four Pines Hostel 

To: LambertÃÂÃÂ¢ÃÂÃÂÃÂÃÂs Meadow Shelter
Miles today: 16.3
Weather: moderate rain

What I don¢t like about sleeping in hostels or shelters is that I am always concerned about disturbing other people in the morning. I am normally up around 6am, although I take my time getting ready. This morning I just hung out in my bunk until the lights went on at 7. By then the rooster outside had sounded his trumpet a few times, and a farm cat had wandered inside the wide open doorway of the hostel and had made his voice heard.The fridge was stocked with farm fresh eggs, so I boiled half a dozen for Cole and I to eat for breakfast. They were good!In the hiker box we scored a new rope to hang our food. I also snagged some large zip lock bags for our feet. We had both managed to get some sox dried out, but our boots were still wet. I put some body glide on Cole¢s toes hoping that would help too.My right boot has been letting water in since I got them at the beginning of the month. I have been in contact with New Balance about it via email, but getting an internet signal out here has been very unreliable lately. Finally I just asked my husband to try to deal with it. I had a message from him last night saying that New Balance will refund us for the boots. I just have to send them back. I was very happy to get that message! The plan is that Mark will get the replacement boots and bring them down when he visits shortly. Then he can take these leakers and send them back. I just have to put up with them a bit longer. As for Cole¢s boots, we are very close to Daleville and we will replace his boots there. Things in the footwear department are looking brighter.Before we hit the trail, we needed to purchase a few Resupply items. .3 of a mile on the other side of the AT was a ¢grocery¢ store. It ended up just being a gas station....a very expensive gas station. I just couldn¢t bring myself to spend $3.29 on a package of spam!! We really only needed breakfast for tomorrow and lunch for a day and a half. I decided to just get snacks instead of lunches and grabbed some honey buns for Cole for breakfast. I also got him a big Mountain Dew to guzzle before we left. Before we left for Georgia, coke was always our pop of choice. On day 3 we had Mountain Dew from a trail angel. Since then, he wants a Mountain Dew as often as he can get his hands one one. We trekked back to the trail and as we started up it I saw a shopping bag sitting by a tree. Who left their garbage here? I went over to peek at it. Inside the bag were two unopened mountain house meals! Wow! I looked around expecting to find an owner. There was nobody. I guess the new owner is me!Not far down the trail we crossed a road. A car was coming down the road and the driver stopped when he saw hikers. ( By this point Cole had gone ahead, but there was another hiker just ahead of me). The driver got out and offered us water and Coke. This day was off to a really positive start! We also had a very special view to look forward to today. McAfee Knob. Rain was in the forecast, but it held off for a long time and we had a gorgeous view of the iconic overlook. Due to our late morning start and having to resupply, the day was much longer than it otherwise would have been. We are going further, but I don¢t seem to be moving much faster. Late in the day the clouds moved in. By the time we got to the Tinker Cliffs we had been dumped on in a flash downpour and the views were shrouded in clouds. Cole¢s feet were hurting him by then too, as were mine.We set up the tent at Lambert¢s Meadow Shelter and crawled inside just as another torrent came down on us. Water was dripping in at the top of the tent because the fly hadn¢t been staked tightly. Through the floor of the tent we could see water flowing like a stream between the tent and the footprint. We blew up our air mattresses and piled our stuff and ourselves onto them. Anything that touched the floor or the walls of the tent was instantly wet. The ceiling dripped. We didn¢t even get out our quilts...they would just get wet.The rain paused for a bit and Cole darted outside to fix the fly. (I had to bribe him by promising to scratch his back when he came back in). The dripping stopped. We put our mattresses as close together as we could in the centre of the tent away from the walls, then we curled up on our little life rafts and tried to sleep as another onslaught of rain pounded away on our tiny shelter.