Date: 2010-06-18
From: Blackrock Hut

To: Hightop Hut
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

18 June 2919, Hightop Hut   After leaving the side trail to the shelter this morning and heading north about 0.1 I met Warren Doyle heading south along with Calculator. Warren knew who I was and started going on about the WhiteBlaze web site. He started complaining about being kicked off the web site and said he had a lot of valuable information he could share. I was not going to get into this with Warren right now. I was on the trail to hike not to listen to complaints. I had someone else running the web site while I am hiking and I wanted this to be an enjoyable hike, not one of worries about the web site. What I really wanted to tell Warren was that if he would stop running his mouth, tooting his own horn, and advertising all the inappropriate things he does on his hike he would not have been kicked off the web site.   This afternoon Spoons, Bismarck and I decided to take the side trail to the Loft Mountain Wayside for some cooked food today, it was 0.5 off the AT. When we got there Bluesky, Wallflower, Sabbath Keeper, Eazy were already there.   After talking to Eazy we realized that we were the only ones in the group that had not seen a bear yet. We were both bumming about this. We decided on a little wager, the person that saw a bear first would get a beer from the other.    I saw my first bear today. As we were walking we heard a loud crash and the bear had jump out of the tree and into the brush. It was about 75 feet from me. I was really excited. I thought I would go all the way through the park and not see a bear.   At Simmons Gap we walk down to the ranger¢s station and filled up with water from the spigot. We did not have to filter this water.   When we got to the road crossing at Swift Run Gap, Sweat Tea and Gean (her husband) drove up and gave us a ride to the campground here in Elkton.   We got here after the grills had closed so we could not order any food. I did get a burger in the microwave though. It tasted terrible. I was able to yogi four slices of pizza for us from a birthday party that was going on.   When we got to the campground we ran into Uncas, The Wolfpack, and Hightower. Uncas has lost some more weight, he looks good.   Eazy came into the campground at dusk. I told him I saw a bear and he said he saw one too. He said he would buy me a beer but I told him we were even.   The whole time we were there we could hear revival talk going over loud speakers from down the road. At dark Wallflower and I were eating at the picnic table at our campsite and Eazy came running back to his pack and grabbed something and ran off. Later that night after Eazy got back he told us he went over to check out the loud music. He said there was guy in a purple suit with his hands up in the air and everyone in the audience with their hands raised and shaking their bodies and falling to the ground. He said it was like what you see in the movies that the church rivals do and he was shocked to see this. He said he ran back to get his camera to take pictures but by the time he went back it was over.   Here tonight at our campsite are Bluesky, Spoons, Wallflower, and Eazy.