Date: 2012-05-18
From: Partnership Shelter / Visitor Center

To: Davis Hollow 
Miles today: 13.2

We woke up at 6:10 and got ready before all the people who were supposed to be there working showed up.  Basically, we didn't want it to look like we had slept there.  The person whom I assumed to be the director of the visitor center arrived at 7:30.  However, we were out hiking at 7:45 and hadn't the time to say hello when they opened the doors at 8:00.  The forest was misty and grey, with a fair amount of immedite climbing up from the road.  This meant that there was also a fair amount of stopping.  Baxter tried to be the leader and has a really strong pack mentality.  He likes to lead but also wants to check on everybody.  This creates a lot of intermittent hiking.  He would get out front, check up the trail for danger, and then walk back to us to make sure we were all ok.  This would normally be fine but Baxter feels the need to make eye contact with each of us which means that he must walk past the first two human hikers.  Of course, then he wants to lead again.  And, to top it off, he doesn't really know how wide he is with his special Ruff Wear pack on.  He does all the regular dog stuff too like smelling everything but he is remarkably well-behaved for the environment he just fell into.  We had lunch at Chatfield Shelter under the tall oaks.  We decided on the rules for Baxter so we could all be consistent: no shelters and no picnic tables.  P-Mo takes him on lots of walks where they lay out together on picnic tables so this was going to be difficult.  The day was really heating up and we felt it as we walked through land that had been cleared of big trees We arrived at the Settler's Museum and checked out their old school house.  We walked up to the main house and Nancy and Irene gave us a tour of what was called the Alpha L. Grubb Visitor's Center, which was the original house built way way back.  The intention of the museum is to show where they settlers of these parts came from and why they went where they did, when they did.  They glossed over the concept of slavery with one arrow from Africa to the South on big general map.  I really like maps and enjoy cartography to the point where I would like to do some work in the area at some point.  They also had a wall-sized map showing how geography affected settlement patterns.  This one was extremely intuitive for someone walking through these parts.  Season had to leave early and take care of Baxter who was in the middle of a howling bout of separation anxiety.  We gave them a $15 donation and moved out to the front lawn to plan our first resupply in Atkins.  Atkins has two gas stations and a restaurant called The Barn.  We ate first so we wouldn't go overboard on food that we would have to carry for days.  I ate The Hiker, a 16oz cheese burger, a slice of lemon meringue pie, and a liter of root beer.   It wasn't actually enough food.  The girls order much more health-conscious items.  Anna got The Platter consisting of only deep-fried  items and P-Mo got an array of sides including apple sauce, potato salad, and cottage cheese.  We then encountered some trail magic from Max Factor who hiked in 2010.  He was offering a shuttle for hikers going down to Trail Days and had a trunk full of cold drinks with him.  Anna and P-Mo saw Hoot and Wildflower in the gas station parking lot while I was trying to decide what fine delicacies I would be eating.  They were staying the night and we were hiking on.  We headed down the highway, under a big overpass, and into a swamp of cat tails.  We stopped to see the Davis Cemetery and deticked ourselves.  I had two from our little jaunt off the trail and I can only imagine how many Baxter picked up.  He's lower, longer, and doesn't wear shoes or socks.  His short hair makes him easy to inspect and P-Mo has been diligently checking.  From there we walked through a cow pasture and up a big sweeping hill through this wide open space of green, knee-high grass.  The cows scattered giving us a wide berth as the golden sunshine filled the valley with beauty.  We ducked back into the woods and found a nice little campsite in the filtered light.  We built a healthy fire, drank a few celebratory beers to commemorate day one and then had a humorous time hanging bear bags in the darkness.  Headlamps helped some but the girls had packed in so much food that the trees and ropes were not sufficient.  We hung four or five bear bags and called it a night.