Miles: 16.3 Steps: 42,497 Elevation Gain: 2,671 feet Another splendid day. So lucky I get to live this life for such a long period of time! I love it so so much out here! Slept in as much as I could, then packed up and around 9am or so Tom came and gave me and a couple of other hikers a ride to Walmart, as promised. Really nice guy, loves to drive fast! He thru hiked the AT in 1980, is now retired, and likes to help hikers out. Thank you! At Walmart I bought waaay too much. Even compared to my normal excessive buying. My pack must weigh over 60 pounds with all this food! Oops! After buying excessive Walmart food I ran (literally) over to Cabela’s but they didn’t have what I wanted, so went to the nearest food establishment: Taco Bell! Mmmmm, again. Love Mexican food, even if it’s fast food. I love Taco Bell in general. True love! Next Tom picked us up and brought us back to the Pavilion. I had to figure out the jigsaw puzzle of this ridiculous quantity of food (and leftover Taco Bell, of course). I finally figured it out and hit the trail around 1pm. My pack was soooo freaking heavy! And after my literal run around this morning I was feeling a bit low energy. I climbed the steep hill out of town, slowly, slowly, slowly inches my way. Beautiful viewpoint at the Pinnacle, but I wasn’t sure how I would make it another 8 or so miles... Miraculously the trail changed from challenging rocks to beautiful, flat, smooth old dirt roads for the entire rest of the way! Eckville Shelter is pretty cool. There’s a big shelter, a big tenting area that I used, a shower, a water spigot (hey, it’s the little things), and most importantly: amazing hiker friends! Rex, Makin It, Stump (we started up talking until almost 11), Honey Badger, Smiles, Red Hawk, Cribbage, Fancy Pants, Song Bird, and more!