Date: 2012-06-20
From: pond campsite

To: White Mountain Campground
Miles today: 14.5
Weather: fog

7:15 amI am not sore upon waking which is a very good sign!!!! These frog noises are something else. They were gentle enough to go to sleep too when this tired, but they are the loudest I have ever heard. I hope to get to the boarder of the Greyson Highlands today. Turtle and I will part ways in a bit. It is weird having to think of someone other than myself out here. 2:01 pm outside of Green CoveI am sitting by the stream and digesting my lunch: turkey/cheese sandwich, ice cream sandwich, bag of sun chips, and two gatoraids. I also bought some snacks for my bag. I feel fortified for the day ahead. I came to this place a couple of years ago and saw some men pulling leaves off a tree. The store owner then told me it was bead wood. I was the only one here with her this time, and she sat down and talked with me while I ate. Another woman walked by on the Creeper Trail, with a black garbage bag slung over her shoulder. They exchanged greetings and the store owner told me that she was collecting "shoemaker" bark. The mountain people sell the bark and leaves to an herbalist who then sells it to drug companies who make supplements. She said the plants had other names, some Yankee came down and told her, but these was the names she "knowed" growing up and this is what they were. She told me that the folks up there in the mountains were a "forgotten people". All the touts of economic development and tourism dollars helping the locals are just words to the people who live there. She said the shuttle people may be making money, but the folks back up there are just getting by. Their schools have been closed, their post offices taken away and yet, they remain as the generations of their families have done before. They are the true Americans, but, yet the forgotten ones, like rural people all over. I am a wanderer and very appreciative when truth reveals itself to me. Walking in the woods is a way to allow that truth into my soul. I am just doing what comes natural.4:26 pm one mile out from White Top StationSo there I am, minding my own business, enjoying a gentle grade up the mountain, listening to the sounds around me. Every few minutes, bikes pass me on the way down the mountain. Birds twerp in the distance. Old barns, standing up to the test of time, completed the picture of beauty as I kept walking. I helped a mother deer and her baby escape a river, I inspected a dead rattlesnake with a 5 year old, I saw a man weed whacking in his yard. So, when I thought I heard the weed whacker again a mile down the road, a fleeting thought of how far that man had come passed before me, but the noise was so loud, I turned to look behind me. There, about a foot behind my right elbow was the biggest and most horrific hornet I have ever seen. It made the one from the shelter look like a little brother. I found out, on this day, that i can run for over a tenth of mile with my backpack on. Every 20 feet or so, I would look back and the hornet would be keeping pace with me. I was terrified. When I could go no further with my pack, I threw it and my poles down and kept running until I couldn't hear the noise anymore. As I tried to recover I assessed my situation as my legs quivered and my heart was beating as hard as it ever has. If a portal had opened and my car was on the other side, I wouldn't have wasted one second wondering what to do. Since I was convinced the hornet had climbed inside my bag because it was blue...I waited a good twenty minutes before I recovered it, hoping all the while that some biker would ride by, feel sorry for me and get the bag. I hit my back pack with my poles a few times and was as nervous as could be. I just knew the hornet was waiting inside for a sneak attack. I was so worried about this, that a few minutes later I almost stepped on a copperhead snake, but noticed it just in time. I have a road walk ahead of me, then I need to find a camp spot. Just taking a break and hoping to stay out of hornet territory.9:26 pm White Top CampgroundI knew there was a camp ground up here I just didn't remember how to get to it. Walked into White Top at 5:55pm. I ate at the gas station, a full burger and fries, then bought some resupply and a protein shake, called Moo Milk. 25 grams of protein and other stuff in each one! The man who gave me directions came along directly and gave me a ride to the campground, which I would have seen had i stayed on the Creeper another few hundred feet. Instead I walked several miles into town and almost had to walk several back up hill to get here. I knew he would take me, the challenge is finding the right time. I guessed that he didn't want anyone to see him giving me a ride so I went behind the shuttle place to put my bag together. He found me there. It was a good thing. It would have taken hours to climb back up here. I had a good hot shower and washed out my clothes. They have developed a hiker funk smell that is not coming out. I had good conversation with the campground owner. He fought in Vietnam. We talked about my journey over there. Picked up a few good stories today. I am getting stronger and feel like I have lost weight even though I have doubled my intake. Maybe it is just moving into the right places.