Date: 2004-04-17
From: Hot Springs

To: Hot Springs
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: clear sky

Crazy day, but so much fun. I woke up a little tired and hung over, so Digit and i cruised into town to get breakfast. On the way through the center of town we passed the pavilion they were setting up for the festival, and we got recruited to help set up chairs. So Norway, Big County, Digit and I helped set up about 30-40 chairs, then on to the food(Big priority of trail life). On the way back thru town and feeling much better i decided to be productive before it was to late. So i went back to camp and grabbed all my clothes for laundry. Off to the other campsite in town where the showers were and rinse myself off, not quite a shower since i didnt have any soap, but man it feels good anyway. After the shower i walked into town with Kristen, who is about 30 miles behind at standing bear hostel. She was really cool, but i probably wont see her again unless she speeds up a lot. I get to the laundromat where Flippy and Big County have exploded on the lawn trying to organize their food for the next section. I throw in my clothes and hang out with them while it is washing. switch over to the dryer and went to the outfitter, which strangly has better prices on food then the grocery store. with food in hand i grab my clothes and head back to camp to get organized. Back into town to eat some Thai food and listen to the live music. After lunch i ran into the Offensive Six who were going to play some frisbee. After Frisbee some marines who are on break from Iraq invited us to play volleyball with them. After my team gets crushed three times the game fizzled and we ended up just hanging out with the marines and talking about their experiences in Iraq so far. Some very intense stuff. I'll give two examples at opposite ends of the spectrum to give you an idea. At one point they asked me if i would be able to shoot a toddler who was walking toward my platoon if i knew there was dynamite in it's diaper. And at the other end one guy told me a story about one time when he was driving his hummer with his rifle in his lap when he felt a tug on his shirt sleeve. he turned and there was an eight year old girl standing there, she gave him a flower and said, "Thank You." So anyway, after the volleyball game Subway and i decided to go on a covert firewood mission, we hopped a fence into a junk yard and threw a whole bunch of old wood over for the bonfire. the next few hours were very mellow just hanging out and getting to know hikers i havent met before who are either ahead of me or behind me. eventually it started to get dark so we all started to drift over toward the fire. the fire was a little to mellow so i suggested a Pub crawl. It couldn't really be a crawl since there is only one pub in town. I was only expecting a few people to join Big County and I, but about 10 people got up and we left with a big group. At the bar the marines were all singing Karaoke, which wasnt the best musical entertainment, but it was hilarious. So after a few hours of really bad singing we headed back to the campfire, the owner of the campground was offering us firewood for the night so a few of us went with him and loaded up and we had a raging bonfire for the rest of the night.