Date: 2017-10-01
From: VA Route 623

To: Chestnut Knob shelter
Miles today: 6.2
Weather: clear sky

I've never witnessed a military invasion but I've now seen the next best thing: southern trail magic from Dirt's extended family.One moment, we were sitting around the fire in the middle of the day and then the next a convoy of cars pull up and out step nearly a dozen people. Soon they're pulling out trestle tables, crock pots, saucepans and coolers to set up a trailside meal.Although "meal" doesn't come close to covering what is soon weighing down the tables. There must be 20+ kinds of food here: salads, stews, lasagna, chicken, rolls, fruit, cookies... It was a tsunami of food in quantities that could probably feed more than twice as many people as are present. And there was chilled craft beer."Oh, this?" said one of the women who helped create this repast. "Oh, this is just what we make every Sunday."The day was relevant because they'd picked today to do trail magic after attending church in the morning. They'd then headed home to finish creating this meal and driven an hour or so to where we were waiting beside VA Route 623.And this isn't even Dirt's direct family. Her mom's new partner, Ricky, has arranged this with members of his family. It was southern hospitality of the kind you read about in books.We'd waited most of the day for this and although I'm usually all about indolence, the polar blast of air that chilled us last night continued unabated, which is why we were huddled around the fire in what would normally have been the enervating heat of the middle of the day.Sriracha and Sweetblood had solved the warmth problem by welcoming Dirt into their tent and using the five bars of phone service to stream episodes of Rick and Morty and The New Girl. They reported, in between giggling fits from watching the shows, that having three in the tent made it toasty.The daily battle of the bladder was the only reason why I eventually emerged from my tent, after which 2am and I got the fire going. As we were festering the morning away, Trail Snail and another Happy Feet (a retired man rather than the young woman of that name) arrived but opted not to wait around for the trail magic.Then Three Goldilocks and the Bear -- reunited once more after the two sisters had to briefly get off trail for a family funeral -- arrived and happily took up places around the fire until the hospitality horde arrived, at which point they contemplated moving on out of a sense of politeless and lack of entitlement but happily were convinced to stay and enjoy the repast.We ate ourselves to a standstill, filled ziplok bags full of leftovers and still seemed to have had barely any impact on the volume of food. Three Goldilocks and the Bear headed on as our benefactors packed up and left, but I said to the rest of Team KRT that I was incapable of walking until I'd spent at least half an hour digesting. The others agreed.Once we felt capable of forward progress, we had a vague goal of eight miles to a dam which was the end of our 16-mile waterless stretch but we only managed six miles, to Chestnut Knob shelter.This was a former fire lookout cabin and unlike the usual AT shelters, didn't have an open side and was made with thick stone walls. After a steep climb up a hill, which was a grateful way to stay warm in the midst of a cold-ass day, we walked into the sun-warmed interior of the shelter and instantly opted to stay here.Cricket and Pumba from Three Goldilocks and the Bear opted to go on to the dam, while Dr Bronner and Professor Sprout opted to stay with us, alongside a section hiker.Hours later, I'm still barely hungry and I'm eating out of the doggy bags from lunch, although this is more out of an interest in lowering my pack weight than because of actual hunger. Life is good.AT fact of the day: I'm still slowly getting used to being in the South, and particularly the habit of saying grace before eating. I'm fully on board with it -- it is, after all, just a version of mindfulness and gratitude -- but it's also contrary to a lifetime of secular/heathen experience of eating as soon as the food is served.