Date: 2006-06-26
To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

I packed up and left the hostel dry and was wet in seconds. It was not really raining but when I got about 500 feet down the trail I came to a lake. A lake in the trail? I looked to see if I could go around it like most large puddles on the trail. There wasn¢t even anything that I could jump on to get across. I had to make the decision to just get my shoes soaked from the start. I knew eventually they would get wet but I wanted to keep them as dry as possible for a bit. I figured that I might as well just soak them and walked right in. The water was to about mid calf. It continued like this all day. There is a ceremonial marker on the side of the trail that marks the half way point. Since the actual point changes every year this serves the purpose. When I got there I knew it was a must photo opportunity. I ended up walking right up to it, stopping briefly, and leaving with no picture. It was raining cats and dogs when I got to the sign so I didn¢t want to pull out my camera from its dry place deep in my pack. If the huge puddles weren¢t enough, over flowing creek crossings were thrown into the mix. Once I got out of the flooded trail I went through several farms. It was nice to be walking through a farm field. It breaks up the monotony of walking in the woods all the time. Some of the fields have animals in them, usually cows. However when I crossed over the fence into a field I noticed the horses down by the barn. I was admiring how beautiful they were. I continued up the hill when something caught my eye. There were 2 horses in the same field with me. They were about 40 yards away. I started whistling for them like everyone does when they see a horse, even if they were driving by in their car. The horses looked up at me and started coming towards me. I was shocked, I felt like the horse whisperer. I had thoughts of trying to ride them if they were that comfortable with me. They got within about 5 feet of me when I stuck out my hand. All the sudden the horse rears back on his back legs and starts making horse noises. (I¢m not sure what the noise is called) I jumped back on my back legs and started screaming as well. Once I saw his giant hoof hit the ground he took off bolting for the barn with the other horse right behind. At the same time I am running about the same speed but in the opposite direction towards the fence. I¢m not really sure what happened between me and the horse but what ever it was, wasn¢t that important to go back and find out.After about 20 miles I came to the lovely town of Boiling Springs. It is right out of a movie. It has a giant pond with a nice park around it. The baby ducks were following their mother. I even saw a pair of young lovers run into the gazebo to get out of the rain. Since it was raining I decided to grab a bite to eat at a little Italian restaurant. It was fabulous. I decided I wanted to do a few more miles and saw that it was flat so I decided to press on. I was cruising. Was averaging 4 miles an hour for 2 hours. Right before where I was about to start looking for a place to camp I went through this section of trees between 2 fields. When I was approaching the trees I heard this noise. When I got in the woods I realized what it was. There were thousands of birds in the trees above me. It was weird till I smacked my poles together to represent a gun shot. The whole section above me would fly off. It just reminded me of the Hitchcock movie. Of course I continued to smack my poles ever so often just to stir them up. Once I got out of the woods I walked a little ways away from the birds to set up camp just to play it safe.