We step out of our tent in the morning and are surrounded by a dense, white fog. We eat breakfast and it rains on and off. A deer comes to the camp and grazes nearby...so cool! Putting the tent away is a mess! We put on our water shoes. I anticipate a day of cold, wet feet and dirty legs. We are walking about 5 miles today.
We hike up the hill and immediately I realize that I am not walking a significant distance in water shoes. My feet don't fit my shoes that well, I don't have on socks, which is threatening blisters if I dare to try it, and it is slippery! We climb to the top of the blue blaze trail and stop to change into our regular hiking shoes. I will take my chances on having wet hiking boots for the remainder of the trip.
We hike quietly for a long time. We hike to the top of a hill and peer through rocks to see sweeping vistas of trees in a strong haze. It is hard to take pictures of this, but it is beautiful.
We are so tired and we decide to eat lunch at a wayside. We drag ourselves into town at 1:30PM. People tell us that the restaurant closes at 2:00. We run, which means we moved slightly faster than the trudging we were doing. Our minds are screaming, "Move!," but our bodies are saying, "Slow and steady wins the race." We made it with 15 minutes to spare. We order a mound of food that looks ridiculous. It is all gone in 15 minutes. The boys order dessert just so they can sit longer. I go out to the porch and start digging through my pack (I am not carrying even one freeze dried meal that I don't have to.) and checking my map. We are another 5 miles from a hut.
Did you know, by the way, that the typical thru-hiker needs 6,000 calories a day? Every hiker that we talked with was scrawny thin, and complaining that they just couldn't eat enough!
The boys want to just stop by the side of the trail and put up a tent. There is not much space on the trail. This means that we will have to clear an area and hope that bears don't wander into our area. I am scared to death of seeing a bear. All the way down the trail I holler, "HEY BEAR!," and clap my hands. Many, many of the guys we meet on the trail say they have seen several bears each day! NO BEARS PLEASE! I push for us to walk to Bird's Nest #3. This will mean that we walk 11 miles in one day. Steve is sure we won't make it and that the boys can't do it. I pray we can make it, start cheering them on, and sing every group building song I can think of. I cheer, I cajole, I threaten. Privately, I am sure we won't make it and we will be eaten by bears during the night. It is getting dark, the trail is rocky and uneven, and I am sure someone will fall down.
We make it! We walked into camp at 8:45. We begin to put up the tent when all of a sudden Kevin starts hollering about the lightning. It isn't lightning. As if on cue, just as we finish setting up the tent, thousands of lightning bugs lift off the forest floor and light up the forest! Kevin is so excited. He has never seen lightning bugs before. It got dark 15 minutes later and we are too tired to cook dinner. We give the boys protein bars and they go to sleep watching lightning bugs flashing on the outside of our tent. It was whimsical, dreamy....magical. The AT is a magical place.
We went to the hut to chat with the thru-hikers after the boys went to sleep.
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