Miles: 11 Steps: 27,907 Elevation Gain: 2,700 feet Faith in Humanity: Uncle Johnny’s was a great pit stop, thanks so much for your hospitality!!! Wow, what a day! The awesomeness broken record, I suppose! Woke up with an incredible urge to use the restroom around 6:45am. Since I was up I quickly packed my things and hit the trail by 7:15am. 6 miles to town!!! I needed to buy a bunch of food (6-7 days worth) to get to Damascus. It was mostly downhill so I made good time. Some cool overlooks on the river below and a nice ridgewalk made the hike quite beautiful! I made it to Uncle Johnny’s Hostel right at 9am, and a shuttle into town was about to leave. I quickly threw my pack down, changed my shirt and darted into the van for the 10 minute ride to town. I resupplied at Walgreens for the next 120 miles and was really quite satisfied. I gorged at Taco Bell, asked nicely for some ketchup packets at McDonalds (for the hot dogs I’d bought, of course) and caught the van back to the hostel. I recharged some electronics, packed my pack and took a shower while hanging out with other hikers. I debated staying the night but opted to hike 4 miles and set up my tent at the next shelter. Great time at the shelter! I shared hot dogs, Sprout shared S’mores, we all shared good times, had a fire, practiced Spanish with Kitchen Sink (from Costa Rica), played hackey sack and had a great time. Nice to have a relaxing day! Hot today, probably reached 80!
My pack weighed 56 pounds leaving Erwin!!!! Kind of insane, really! That’s why they call me Deluxe out here: always carrying too much stuff! Haha. No matter how many thousands of miles.... Supposedly bad storm coming in maybe tomorrow night... and the trail clones super high. Should be interesting, but I’m looking forward to the future for sure.