Date: 2009-05-31
From: Campsite: Crawfish Valley along Reed Creek

To: Spring-Fed Pond
Miles today: 14.9

I can't even begin to explain how hard it rained last night - especially on my little tent. I could see the lightening bolts through the yellow fiber of the Go-Lite Shelter and I could feel the spraying of the raindrops falling through the structure. The raindrops were deafening and I didn't sleep much at all. As all of you know, I have no ground floor and the only thing between me and the ground is my small, lightweight sleeping pad. This setup works great with clear skies, but when rain and thunderstorms roll around, most of my belongings get completely soaked. In this case, the ground was hard and the rain was so strong that it created a small layer of water that rushed underneath my tent, thereby soaking everything! My sleeping bag became completely drenched and I had to sit there and try to fall asleep with water coming in from all directions. I left camp later than usual, but still before the others. It was relatively easy terrain and as I had finished my 'Into the Wild' audiobook, I started on a new one: Bill Clinton's memoir: 'My Life'. I haven't yet arrived to the part of he and Monica Lewinsky getting down and busy. I walked through some private land on the AT and saw a beautiful fawn as I was taking a pee. Then, I climbed one of the horse ladders and headed up the mountainside that looked eerily similar to the mountains in Scotland and in Ireland. Cows and bulls were out in the field grazing, but some of them were blocking my path on the Appalachian Trail. One bull kept getting closer and closer to me, so I constantly had to make a quick darting movement towards it in order to scare it off.   As I cautiously passed the group of 15 cows, one did charge me. I was filming them at the time and had to pick up my pack and run off again. I made my body as large as possible and shouted, "Don't even think about it, Mr. Cow!"I stopped on my way up the hill in order to take pictures of the countryside and, when I saw Willow in the distance, I decided to wait for her. We descended down to a dilapidated farm, we had to plod our way through some incredibly muddy terrain and climb very steep horse ladders. For some reason, my quad muscle and femur bone began to hurt intensely and I noticed that my leg began to swell. I just kept on hiking. Willow and I chatted for a while before we came across a very small baby turtle on the trail. We took some pictures and placed the little guy off the trail, where he wouldn't be stepped on or eaten by a predator. We crossed a main road and headed to the pavilion off to the side in order to have lunch and dry out our tents and wet belongings from the heavy rain the night before. Odin and Willow pushed on, but I stayed behind, falling asleep underneath the hot sun on my Z-Lite pad. It was great to soak up some of the rays and just take some time to enjoy the beautiful weather. When I finally awoke from my afternoon siesta, I packed up my belongings and headed back to the trail. But, I really didn't get very far because I ran into Raindancer and Raspberry, who were, as they always are, smiling, chirpy, and incredibly friendly. Raspberry gave me the webstie of her boyfriend, who is bicycling from Chicago all the way down to the southern section of South America and then back again. In total, the trip will take 2.5 years to complete. Pretty heavy stuff and very impressive. Then, I proceeded to climb 1500 feet to the top of the mountain en transit to the spring-fed pond, which is where I saw Willow and Odin with their tents already set up. I decided to stay at the make-shift tentsite (i.e. directly on the trail), as my leg was quite bothersome and the pond had a pretty good water source attached to it. Odin was telling both of us that he was a zookeeper in his former life back in New Hampshire. Pretty sweet job. He explained, however, that he was at the point in his life where he wants to see and do as much as he can, before it is too late. The bullfrogs in the small pond were rambunctious little buggers and the bugs up top were pretty horrible, which is why my mosquito headnet came in handy yet again. I intended to write more in my journal, but I'm just so tired and my leg is becoming even more painful, so I'm going to have to fall asleep.