Date: 2005-06-29
From: Virginia 603

To: Trimpi Shelter
Miles today: 12.5
Weather: light rain

Today was interesting, to say the least. We all woke up to people staring at us, sprawled out on picnic tables! I thought it was hilarious, because I slept REALLY well! Cody seemed to have stuff on his mind; he looked tense, and wasn't speaking much at all. He and I bickered a bit for a minute or two about stupid stuff like water filtering, and then he left. Grace and I left about 15 minutes later, waived goodbye to the horse people, and then ran into Cody, just back into the woods, at the first water source. Not much was said by any of us, and I hiked away, past Grace, and into the trees.About 2 or 3 miles later, I was in my own little world, not paying any attention, when I hit a road crossing. I looked around, and realized that I had wandered off the trail. You have to be a complete fool to manage to get lost on the AT, because it's so well-marked; Ladies and gentlemen, nice to meet you...you can call me FOOL!! I had to back-track nearly 3/4 of a mile to find the last white blaze, which was a turn-off that I had missed. Fun stuff. Don't know that the wild animals were quite used to the four-letter words that I was muttering the whole way back up that hill!Back on track, I was sure that Cody and Grace had passed me. I hiked at a pretty decent pace, but never saw either of them. After about 8 or 8.5 miles (not including my little detour), I hit a road crossing, where I stopped to rest. Some guy offered to give me a ride into the closest town, so I could get some grub, then get back to the trail. I told him I was waiting for friends, and couldn't. A bit later, Cody came up. I thought he was ahead of me, so I was a bit surprised. Now we were waiting for Grace. The odd part, though, was that Cody never passed her while he was behind me, and when I left her and Cody at the beginning of the day, she was in front of him. Weird stuff. We waited about an hour, then decided to go looking for her. She doesn't like it when we do this, but we were a bit worried. We found her pretty quickly, and told her about our plan to hitch into town. We couldn't find a ride, so I started walking on the road, thumb extended. No luck. They apparently managed a ride behind me, and the car pulled over when they got to me.I got in, and the lady asked me my name. Not even 5 seconds later, she asked me if I was Christian. I informed her of my Catholic roots, and she replied with something like, "oh, so you've got the Catholic ritual, but you've never read the bible." Well, nice to meet you too, you holy-rollin' weirdo!! She was quickly insulting, and I didn't like her at all from that point on, but I laughed and shut up, because she was our ride into town. She kept trying to get us to come back to her house and spend the week with her family, who would love us, she was certain, because they too were hikers. Her house was nearly two hours away, and I could just see us being shackled and locked in her basement, getting lectured on how we just weren't quite "christian" enough! I politely declined, and so did Cody and Grace. I did have to laugh, though, because when she asked Cody if he was christian, he replied, "I can be if you want me to be!" She took things a bit too seriously, and was so scattered that anything she tried to do to assist us (which she seemed to genuinely be trying to do) came out bass-ackwards and all goofed up. She dropped us off at a diner, where we ate, then caught a ride back to the trail. We had planned a long day, which meant we still had nearly 15 miles of hiking left, and it was near sundown. Change of plans. Cody and Grace wanted to make the Partnership Shelter, which is affectionately known on the traill as the "Taj Mahal." It has a shower, running water, and a phone where you can order pizza and beer! Wow! So, they rode with the hitch 15 miles past where I got dropped off(the same place I got off to go into town initially), and I told them I'd see them tomorrow. I hiked 4 miles, in just about an hour, because I knew my headlamp was almost done, to the Trimpi Shelter. I got there in the dark, and I was the ONLY person there! Admittedly, I was a bit freaked out. The mice hovered around all night, random noises and stirrings filled the night air, and I slept off and on until sunrise...my first night completely alone in the woods...not too shabby.