Date: 2019-05-28
From: Stealth Camp

To: Knot Maul Shelter
Miles today: 15.2

May 28 ( Day 66): We woke up and thought it had rained but the tent was wet because of the heavy dew. It was even dripping off the trees so we thought it was still raining. The rain tarp was soaked. Neither of us had slept very well. The train came through 3 times last night and, holy cow, was it loud. We thought it might be coming right through the tent.We packed up and hit the The Barn restaurant, only a mile from where we were camped. Crusher said the coffee was great and he couldn't wait to go there in the morning. I don't think the taste would have mattered to David. It was real brewed coffee, not instant! (He did say that the coffee was good though. Bonus!)We waited a bit to see if Crusher showed up but then at 7:30 decided to get going. We had to walk along the road for a bit and then the underpass of I-81 till we saw our white blaze. It was strange hiking along there in the woods hearing the interstate traffic rush by and knowing that most of the folks in those vehicles probably didn't even know the AT was running parallel to them.We climbed higher and into denser woods, looking for a sign for the Davis Cemetery. James Davis settled the area and it was originally called Davis Fancy (I love that name. Too bad they didn't keep it.) We found the little cemetery after pushing through waist high grass and an almost non-existent trail. It had a little fence around it and a couple pretty shade trees but it was overgrown. The stones were in pretty bad shape. One had been fastened to a tree to keep it upright. Several were just stacked against the other tree. The one of Harold (1808-1886) and Annie (1816-1867) Davis was in good shape to read. So was Lizzie Davis' (1859-189?).We walked back to the trail and continued on. We finally hit the sign that read "1/4 GA->ME"!! Wonder Woman had gotten there just before us. She took our picture by the sign and we took hers. She even included us in her Instgram post.?She mentioned she was from Holland, Michigan. We told her we took our daughter there when she was little and there was a windmill and local girls would dance a Dutch dance. Wonder Woman said that she was a Holland dancer when she was in high school!We walked through several beautiful, privately owned pastures. You knew they were privately owned because the sign by the gate would ask you to please close the gate after coming through or you would have to climb up and over the fence by way of a ladder.After coming through one particularly beautiful pasture and climbing up and over the fence we came upon the campsite where Stronghold and the Canadian woman were attacked and Stronghold lost his life. There were flowers and a cross with his name on it. There was also a book and pen in a bag for hikers to leave their thoughts. Hikers had left momentos and coins. We stopped and spoke quietly of this loss to our hiker family. I said a prayer. We walked on, but definitely in a more somber mood. It was so hard to believe something that horrible happened.We hiked on a while more and then stopped for our favorite lunch of avocado and cheese on a flour tortilla.After lunch Crusher caught up with us and walked to the next road where he was going to stay at the Quarter Mile Inn and then leave the trail to go home. (He hikes about 150 miles of the trail each year.).We hiked on to the Knot Maul Shelter and there was no one there but us. They thought "Holy crap! We must be the very last hikers on the trail!" Later that evening though another hiker came along and slept in the shelter. We had a number of tough ups today but still put in 15.2 miles.