Date: 2014-04-01
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Miles today: 0.0

Day 20: Tuesday, 1 April 2014I'm sure Buffalo is well on his way, and I'm preparing for the next phase of my trip, but let me tell you about the backpedalling Marty and I needed to do.Once I decided to get off the trail, I contacted Marty to make plane reservations and my friends in the Winston-Salem and Raleigh areas. Sounded like a go, so Marty got a flight for me out of Raleigh, where I planned to visit last. I also asked Marty to send my Army duffle bag to my Raleigh friends, in order to pack my backpack in it for the flight. (It would be more protected through the handling process.)Well, somehow, I missed a phone message from my Raleigh friends on Sunday, and when I called them on Monday, Nancy was very appologetic but they were heading out for a family funeral up north. Oh, wow. Sorry to hear that. OK, I'll figure something out.I called Marty yesterday at work and told him. He'd already taken the package to the Post Office but said he'd track it and see if he could get it rerouted. Good luck, Marty! In the mean time, I called Dave and Donna in the Winston-Salem area and told them what had happened. "No problem. You can stay here, and we'll get you to the airport on Saturday." Thanks, you two!Marty called back a bit later and said that he went to the Post Office and was able to get the package! It hadn't gone out yet. They also told him that if he brought it back before the end of the day with the new address, they wouldn't charge a second time! (I don't know about any of you, but the Post Office reigns supreme in my book!) Marty asked me what I wanted to do. I hated for him to have to go all the way home to get Dave and Donna's address, but he said that, well, he'd check on the dogs and when he came back into town, he'd also then go grocery shopping, since he hadn't gone out all weekend. He called a bit later to say that the package was on its way to Dave & Donna's, and ought to be there by Wednesday! And they did NOT charge a second time. (It was one of the flat rate boxes.) Thank you, thank you, Marty AND the Post Office!So, today. Roberta had a late morning appointment, so I packed up and went in with her so she wouldn't have to come back to the house to get me. By the time she got out, we had more than enough time to get to the meeting spot in Marion so we stopped in the visitor center of the Biltmore Mansion. It was built by one of the grandsons of the New York Vanderbilt family, around the turn of the century, the LAST century. It would have been neat to see the entire place, although it sounds like it could take a week to see and experience it all! We just watched a short video highlighting the many facets of the mansion and surrounding properties, to include an outdoor center!On the road again, heading north to Marion. Donna did some research to find an easy halfway point to meet, which was a Hardee's. (Fries and an ice tea worked for me at that point!) Not too long after Roberta and I finished up, I saw a car that met Donna's description. Sure enough, she got out of the car and it was my "Army Buddy" Donna! The three of us sat for a while and chatted, but then it was time to move on.Thank you so, so much, Roberta, for picking us Hiker Trash up off the trail, hosting us for a couple days, getting Guy on a Buffalo back to the trail and driving me half way to Winston-Salem to meet my next friend! You deserve a double set of Trail Angel wings!The drive with Donna was a lot of fun. We talked about our time at the 42nd Field Hospital at Ft. Knox. The three of us were lab techs there. Being in a field hospital, we got rotated through clinics, the post hospital lab, and the company warehouse, where all our field gear (tents and equipment) was kept. If you don't know what a field hospital is, think M*A*S*H! Yup, an entire hospital, including wards and living areas, in tents! We talked about and tried to piece together the times we went to the field and were deployed as a hospital. The company was sent to Indian Town Gap to do the medical processing of the Haitians that came over in 1980. I didn't go because I was outprocessing to go to Alaska, but I stopped in to see my unit on my drive home on leave to New York before heading to Alaska. We also got to fill in what happened to each of us after that. What a flash from the past! Lots of fun!Near their home we stopped to pick up a few groceries, and Donna gave a commentary of the road, if I wanted to go out one of the days she has to work. We got home and talked and talked.Dave got home from work and had MORE discussion of the 42nd Field Hospital. Apparently another lab tech had found Dave on Facebook, although Dave doesn't do much on the social media outlets. So that stirred even more discussion. What fun!Thank you so much, Dave and Donna, for letting me stay for the week, here at the "D&D, B&B"!While I've been here, I've seen cardinals (the birds), goldfinches, and a type of woodpecker at their feeders, a fox trotting across their backyard with something in its mouth, saw turkey buzzards circling, and I learned about wood bees - these huge bumble bee-looking things aren't harmful to humans, but apparently eat into wood, even treated wood! They are annoying though, if you are sitting around a lot of wood. We went to Old Salem for the day and had lunch. Sitting outside of an old wood building, at a wooden table, these bees were dive bombing each other around us for territory! They were pretty intimidating.We've eaten dinner out on their screened-in back porch. It's been so nice. (Buffalo should be having a nice hike, hopefully a few degrees cooler up in the hills for hiking.) They said that these were the first evenings they'd been able to eat outside this year, although they are waiting for April 15th to do any garden planting! There is still potential for cold snaps, or at least frost.It's been great to sleep and eat INSIDE, not to mention other things! Very relaxing!Light's out....Mum and...