Date: 2013-08-05
From: Nowhere: Sitting in Broken Tent in Pouring Rain

To: Cooper Lodge Shelter
Miles today: 13.5
Weather: clear sky

***We interrupt this Journal to introduce a new Journal started by our very own Beast Cub at: Cub's Appalachian Trail Journal!*** We spent 17 hours in the tent yesterday! Can you imagine the three of us and all our stuff crammed in a space smaller than a double bed. Being 12 Cub's idea of fun is to fuss all day, stinking up the tent and squealing with laughter. Since it was raining the kids piled in close to me so they wouldn't touch he sides of the tent and cause a leak. We did have a big puddle under our tent that leaked in so our sleeping bags got wet. In the morning it was colder than a Florida winter. It's super hard to get out of your toasty warm bag now! It was sunny so I thought I felt better. Then I found my powdered milk bag got punctured, spilling everywhere in my food bag. Then to gum it all up even more our olive oil bottle lost its lid in the night and oozed all over my food. Good morning. I was still dragging until we walked over a "Shrek" (according to the girls) suspension bridge. Guess I was Shrek and Cub was Donkey. I had to do it...I shook the bridge causing Cub to scream and laugh. One of the best parts about having kids is playfully teasing them. So then we noticed the most stunning river of rocks and waterfalls. Being Floridians we had to stop for water play. There was a rock worn down like a lounge chair. I reclined in it for almost 3 hours, soaking up he sun, listening to the water and generally letting the beauty of Nature wash away my down mood. We eventually continued on a beautiful hike, up and down with our ears occasionally popping from the height. We followed lots of moose tracks but never saw one. There are many porcupines out here too. We ate dinner at the second oldest shelter on the trail. A dog we like named Helga was there. She was limping so her owner, Occupy, took a zero day. Getting there we had to decide whether to follow a longer suggested detour due to damage from hurricane Irene in 2011. We decided to follow the AT and when we got to the bridge crossing it was gone. You could see massive concrete bases with rebar sticking out. The boards to the bridge were miles down river. Trees were down everywhere. It must have been terrifying if you'd been on the trail then. Hope we have a mild hurricane season! Someone had place a huge tree or utilized a tree to cross. They'd tied paracord to the tree and other little trees making a tree bridge with a handle. When we got to the other side there was a very small stretch of white sand!!! We laid down and wallowed in it, eventually building a sand castle. Cub wrote "Florida Flip Floppers" in the sand under it. I feel all better now!Also Blueberry, Petty Officer of Command Central, came through for us and contacted our tent co and the backpacking co and got stuff mailed to us by Friday!!  Say your prayers it gets there. We LOVE our Blueberry, oh yes we do!   The amazing thing to me is that when I had my meltdown the girls were very calm. In the back of my mind I thought they'd use my weak moment to petition to go home. They never did. When I told them this later they laughed and said it never occurred to them. They knew we were going all the way and they don't want to quit for anything. It makes me feel really great to know they are equally motivated and loving this. This is the first night I've totally zipped my mummy bag hood and hunkered down. Brrrrrr!