Date: 2011-05-02
From: (42) Jenkins Shelter

To: (43) Jenny Knob Shelter
Miles today: 23.8
Weather: overcast clouds

I was awoken several times last night. Mofo¢s bladder had a short temper, and he was always getting up to pee. The gentleman on my other side was a roller, and he had slid off of his inflatable sleeping pad, which (much like the crashing of tectonic plates) was digging into mine and bending upwards against my side until it half covered me. I didn¢t mind though. I found the whole affair to be rather funny, and couldn¢t help but roll my eyes and laugh. What a bunch of characters!When Helm and I woke up, we assumed that Green Hat had come in after dark the night before, slept, and headed out early that morning. (We would later learn that he had hiked half an hour past the shelter before turning around and heading back, causing his abnormal lateness.) Mofo told us that somebody had been tenting behind the shelter, and that they had left their food bag hanging in the tree. Helm and I thought it might have been Green Hat¢s on account of he had left things behind before, such as his tent stakes one night and his stove another (he packs in the dark). We were going to hike the food back to him, but upon further inspection decided that the bag did not belong to Green Hat, and that last night he must have camped under someone else¢s food bag unknowingly! We hiked the morning without seeing Green Hat. Around 8am we came across a living room set somebody had dumped in the woods. It consisted of an easy chair, couch, tv, tire swing, and a laptop bolted down to a picnic table with the words ¢ET phone home¢ etched into its screen. The entire scene was made complete by a toilet sitting in the woods, and I was surprised to find that no hearty hikers had taken a dump in it yet. (I would place finding a toilet out here in the same playing field as ¢finding water in the desert¢, ¢weapons of mass destruction in Iraq¢ and, ¢having candy for breakfast.¢) Mofo and his buddies caught up to us, and being the nice guy he is took pictures of me using these woodland luxuries, including one of me sitting on the toilet doing the thinker man pose, and another in front of the TV (I was watching Oprah).At 12 Helm and I found a stream near a large highway and decided to cook lunch, despite possible road run-off. We should have waited, because the water tasted nasty. I dumped my food bag to reveal that I only had enough left for a day, and none the next. This meant that I would have to hike down a road crossing the next morning to resupply.We hiked the rest of the afternoon without passing Green Hat, and were worried we had lost him, but when we arrived at our goal shelter he was already there waiting for us, and gave us some cookies he had received from trail magic! Being low on food, I was grateful for the extra calories. We built a fire and shared the shelter with a guy my age named Bud Heavy (after Bud Light), and two ladies named Glad Gal and Clutch. We heard from them that Osama Bin Laden was dead, and were happy that they finally got him! (Slept like a baby that night)Helm¢s section hike is coming to a close, and he is way ahead of schedule, so we are planning on taking the next few days a little slower.