Date: 2018-05-05
From: Stealth above a cow pasture

To: Stealth on a ridge
Miles today: 19.9

Very eventful night last night.2am an owl was right above my tent and doing its thing for about an hour.Its okay though because I love owls.Then about 4:30am until daylight a pack of coyotes were all around us.Super loud,eerie,and way to close.They didn¢t mess with us.There were cows right below us they were hunting.I have never been that close and outside with coyotes.It freaked me out.I would say the closest they were was about 10 yards away.  Very humid this morning.Never thought I would say that after some of the cold weather we have woken up to!A great start took us through another farm and fields full of bulls.These ones we¢re mellow though.Today was a lot of ridge walking  without many views but still delightful.Chestnut ridge was awesome with great views and a storm coming right at us.Chestnut Knob Shelter is an old fire warden cabin converted into a shelter.As soon as we got inside it downpours.We lucked out again.A nice surprise was that Godfather was there.Havent seen him in weeks.Caught up.He had some miles to make so he left in the pouring rain.Comfortably Numb and I had a lunch .Part of mine was sardines I found at the 1 room school house the day before.Morr about this in a minute.We had to decide whether to stay here or go to a hostel 6 miles away.We decided to try for the hostel.aWhen we got to the shelter you could still see mountains far away.We walked out the door and were in a cloud.Couldnt see 20 feet in front of you.We still went. About half an hour down the trail my feet and hands got really itchy.Like itchiness I have never felt.Then my face felt hot.Comfortably Numb Looked at me and said wow your face is bright red.Then my arms,legs,and most of my body broke out in a red itchy rash.I can only blame it on the sardines.Havent had them in years.It was a very itchy and hot 6 miles on an awesome ridge line to the road where we were supposed to call for a ride to the hostel.  We got to that road and Godfather yelled up¢ Hey look at all this,you made it!¢It was a family with a huge trail magic set up.Pilgrim thru hiked last year and his parents and himself really put on a magnificent spread.Beers(my favorite magic),all kinds of soups ,homemade cookies,breads.Like heaven.Miles showed up and was just as happy as we were.I did a shot of tequila with Pilgrims Dad.Pilgrim offered  all of us a ride down to the hostel which was a ways away.We got there and the owners were not there and there were hikers just living in their house with no way back to the trail.It was a beautiful farm and we wanted to stay,but we really needed to have a ride back to the trail in the morning which was no guarantee.So Pilgrim bought all of us back to the trail.We had to find a flat spot quick because the sky was nighttime Black with a big storm coming again.We found a spot got our tents up and hung our bear bag with lightning and thunder all around us.As soon as the 3 of us got in our tents it pea size hailed and downpours.We Keep Just missing this really bad weather,eventually our luck will run out.  Really interesting adventurous kind of day.To me Thats the best part of being on this trail.You never know who you will meet,what¢s going to happen,or where you end up at the end of the day.