Date: 2013-07-02
From: Culvers Gap, Branchville, NJ

To: Rutherford Shelter
Miles today: 11.7
Weather: light rain

I was alive when I woke up this morning so that's the good news!I woke up at six and packed up to leave my motel. One of my photos shows the view I had out a hole in the bathroom wall. I walked down the road to the Firehouse Bagel Shop for breakfast and also bought three bagels for my hike. I then checked out of the Corbin Ridge Motel and walked to Dale¢s Market where I bought a can opener for my tuna - why don't they come with peel off lids? Sardines do. I then bought some food that I hope will last a few days. So I'm outside loading my pack when this lady walks by and says hello and asked if I was hiking the AT. I tell her yes and that I was hoping to get a ride back to the trail. She said she would take me in her golf cart. I asked, ¢On the highway?¢ and she said no on the back roads. We go down the back roads around the nearby lake back to the trail, which will save me the 2.5 mile hike back to the trail. She¢s giving me the fifty cent tour. When we arrive back at the trail, which is inside a state park but not really where I needed to start back at, I get out and thank her. Another lady comes walking up and the two of them know each other and start talking. Then a park ranger pulls up, rolls his window down and asked the lady who drove me here, ¢What are you doing?¢ She says, ¢I¢m talking to my friend and dropping off this hiker.¢ Then the ranger asks, ¢What are you doing with a golf cart on state roads?" The lady says, "I was just being nice and giving this hiker¢¦¢ The ranger interrupts her excuses and says, ¢I said, what are you doing with a golf cart on a state road?¢ The lady tries to explain again and the ranger interrupts again and says, ¢Do you have insurance and tags?¢ She says no. Then he wants her ID which she doesn¢t have. Then he wants to know her name and how far away she lives (2 miles). He says, ¢I'm giving you a ticket and you need to call a towing service to tow the golf cart to your house. She says she doesn¢t know any towing services and asks can a friend come get it? His answer is, ¢No. You either call a towing company or I'll have it impounded.¢ She says again that she doesn¢t know a towing company and he gives her a card with the name of a towing company on it. He says to tell them it¢s ¢¦ and he gives his name. So the ranger gives her a seventy-five dollar ticket. She starts crying and now has to pay a towing company (that he knows) probably $150 to tow her golf cart home. She's upset, worried about paying it and her friend offers to pay for the towing. I feel bad for her but I put on my pack and thanked her again for doing something nice for someone and I head off to the trail.The park where she dropped me off is farther north on the AT, about a half mile from where I needed to start back, so I hike south back to where I got off the trail on Hwy 206. I don't consider myself a purist but I want to be able to say without a doubt that I tried my darndest to hike the entire trail. When I reached the highway, I noticed Joe to Go (a restaurant) so I walked over and bought a moon pie and a Pepsi (no RC Cola ¢ it¢s a southern thing). Then I head on out northbound once again. I thought about the lady who had tried to be nice to me today and how things could have turned out differently if we had all made different decisions. I did reach a shelter this evening where I'm tenting in the rain. And scratching like a dog with fleas, from all the mosquito bites on me. (But I don¢t have bed bugs!)