Date: 2005-05-21
From: Frazier Discovery Trail

To: South River Fire Road
Miles today: 19.9

We got a ride back to the trail by a Trail Angel, Bill. Thanks so much. These Trail Angels in Waynesboro are fantastic. It was 30 miles each way for him to shuttle us and he wouldn't accept any money!We said our goodbyes to the Sandman. We look forward to seeing him again at his place where we can enjoy a big bowl of hot buttered popcorn! We then headed on our way. We got to the trail at 8am and headed north.The hike was nice today, the weather was beautiful, full sun all morning. Some white puffy clouds started to appear later in the day. We met up with Shadow on the trail just before we got to the South River Picnic Area. We wanted to look near the picnic area for possible tenting sites, as did he.On the little 0.1m trail to the picnic area, Shadow started talking about "yogi-ing" a Dr. Pepper and sandwiches from picnickers. Cubby laughingly told him to stop with all the food/soda talk because if we didn't get anything, she wasn't going to be happy. We filled our water at the water fountain and then we saw them. "Targets." We mean picnickers packing up and heading for their car. That is when Cubby went into full "yogi" mode. Cubby started talking to them and kidding about having any "left-over" sodas. Sure enough, they offered us 4 cans of soda.Shadow and Cubby started walking the picnic area to see if there were any areas off of the picnic grounds to set up some tents. We didn't want to camp at the picnic area but we wanted to be able to use the amenities.We happened upon a couple of people starting to fix dinner over a charcoal fire. Cubby struck up a conversation with them, we were pleasantly surprised to an invite to dinner. And keeping with our philosophy of "never turn down free food," we graciously accepted. Judith and Hank are amazing people. It was a wonderful dinner cooked to perfection. The meal was an excellent steak, grilled potatoes, fresh bread with butter, and baked apples for dessert. Yummy, Yummy! Now that is trail food!Judith and Hank are both retired, and very adventurous. She has run many rivers around the world and backpacked many different countries also. They enjoy travelling and seem to always be going somewhere. They had a lot of common interests with us, American history, travelling, adventure, and going to small out of the way places. They were very generous and the conversation was easy and fun.She set the table for us with "newspaper" placemats, plastic plates, and plastic utensils. We got to eat this wonderful meal like civilized people.Judith is the first person we met on the trail from Nebraska. We took some pictures of the whole meal and of our wonderful company.It was an extremely fun and unexpected evening. We always say - it's all about the timing. The trail is more than just a path to get from point A to point B. It is a string of experiences. Dinner with Judith and Hank was one of those experiences. One of those little things, that really end up being the big things, or in other words, it turns into what life is all about.Some clouds started rolling in so we said our goodbyes and headed back to the trail and hiked to the first flat spot we found and set up our tents. A few sprinkles fell right after we got into our tents but it only rained for 5 minutes. We were in bed at 8:30pm after a good day and full tummys.