Date: 2014-05-11
From: laurel creek shelter

To: pickle branch shelter
Miles today: 22.5
Weather: clear sky

This was the day i have been planning on since twelve days ago when ann rogers e mailed me about this hige hiker feed she and her friends put on. I needed to go 220 miles in those 12 days but i wouldnt miss it for anything. This lady takes time to look thru trail journals and figure out where people are and their pace and if she thinks they will make it she sends them a letter. I was supremely impressed by this. Above and beyond the cost of the food is the time spent to prepare for things like this and people do it with a smile. The day started out hot but with only 14 miles to walk by 2 o clock there was not a big hurry so we started off slow, actually the last to leave camp also. It started of nice, walking thru some meadows laced with spiderwebs covered in dew. Very pretty like a country postcard. Over some fences and hills we crossed sinking creek and came to a road. There was a car parked directly across, left there by some day hikers, and we spotted a sign post to the right with an AT symbol on it, a quick glance at my guide said turn right so we did. Crocs was down the road stationary which concerned us, he yelled back 'is this the right way?' I could only guess it was so we all walked down the road a bit looking for the next white blaze. I found one on a basketball pole in a church parking lot but none after that could be found, didnt seem right. So with nothing else to do we stood still. Why go further the wrong way? Then we saw 2 other hikers coming along, they didnt know where we were supposed to go either. So with nothing else to do we stood. Thankfully a local saw us lost puppys and came out to see if we were obviously lost. He directed us back to where we came from, the car was blocking the trail. Grrr, stupid day hikers, or stupid thru hikers. Why the AT sign on the sign post? Nobody could figure that one out. Back on the trail we got closer to the keiffer oak tree, the biggest oak tree on the AT in the south. Shes a big ol girl, bout 18' around and 300ish years old. Its a beauty and im sure it feeds a lot of squirrels. From there we had the only hill between us and the feed. It was a soul crusher. Hot humid and hills. We past three hikers overheated pulled off the side of the trail but we pushed on determined to make it to the top with no dry spots on our clothing. We did just that. From the ridge i decided to try to txt my old ma for mothers day. No avail. Phone said i had service but it wouldnt send. I would have to keep trying but couldnt ever get it to go thru, sad. The ridge was nice and for a while it was all open rock turned up on a 45 degree angle. Glad the rock was not slippery we scrambled along taking breaks to look over to the ridge parallel to us. Beautiful now that it was all green, it looked like green velvet. I like walking along the big rocks all pushed up, crazy to think about how they got there. We found a nice sitting rock on which to eat a prelunch lunch. You dont want to go into a big feed starving. We were still going to be early so a break was helpful. After we would walk the home stretch downhill to the food. A little early but lusting cold soda we got there 15 minutes early. Cold soda was there to be had, lots of it. A lady making fajitas asked how i heard about the feast. I told her a lady named ann e mailed me. She said you cant trust ann. I asked if she was her, her was! I thanked her for taking the time to pick me. The food was crazy. Coolers of soda and gatorade. Tables of snack food, salad, and fruit. Oh lets also say there was about 8 large dutch ovens with anything from parsnip bread pudding to rolls to lasagna! They even had dessert! They were/are amazing people. A few of them were hikers but not all, the rest were just people that like to support us. Ann made a really nice speech about how they like helping us do something extraordinary and helping us change into extraordinary people. The best was she had a big bag of marbles, passed them around for us to take one and said to carry this and everytime we had somethimg great happen, put that experience into the marble. I loved the idea and we can leave the marble someplace or continue to carry it. She said she has marbles all around the world. Great idea. If that wasnt enough they had a notebook. Knowing it was mothers day and there was no service there, we could write down our name, our mothers name, and her number. One of the ladies was gonna call em all when she got home for us. Really special how much people care, i cant really wrap my head around it completely. After letting the food settle for a bit we were going to hike 9 more miles to keep on schedule to get to the next resupply. They offered up a goody bag to take with us. Right out of the gate there was a big hill. Spice, capt phillips and i waddled our way up, no speed records were set. It wasnt terribly bad because of the pace but it was a very long steep climb. At the top is a monument to Audie Murphy, the most decorated american in WWII. Ironic that a war hero that was a pilot ended up crashing into a mtn. He has a wonderful resting place. A few more miles amd we made it to the shelter. As the light was fading we decided to sleep in the shelter. I dont like sleeping in them but didnt feel like setting up my tent. It was only the three of us so it wouldnt be crowded. A long day but a good one. Just one more day too good to be expected on the appalachian trail.