[at-l] My weekend - very long

[KarenS62@aol.com]

This weekend was a lot of fun. I spent a very rainy day Saturday driving FS roads. Who knew the roads in Georgia were made of "slippery-when-wet" red clay - yikes! I was trying to find Datto - I heard he was in the area, but got conflicting messages about whether he was ahead or behind. In the meantime, I got a few miles of hiking in, saw a bunch of boy scouts , a few thru-hikers I had met at Springer and gave hot coffee to a very chilled and wet hiker. All in all, a productive and relaxing afternoon.

After I got tired of sliding near the edge of the mountains, I drove on up to the Blueberry Patch to drop of Datto’s box. While there, Gary asked me what direction I went to go home. When I asked what direction did he WANT me to go home, he kind of grinned and asked if I would consider giving a couple of guys a ride to the train station and saving them $80  It probably doesn’t come as any big surprise that I said "sure". Yes Virginia, there IS an Amtrak station in Gainesville - two trains leave there daily - one north and one south. 

We stopped at Bucky’s for BBQ - the guys also had a huge dish of banana cream pudding with real whipped cream - pure bliss written all over their faces. 

Sunday morning was predicted to be beautiful so I woke before dawn and headed out for a hike. I stopped at a local bakery and picked up a few croissants and orange juice to eat at the top of the mountain. I decided to hike south from Dick’s Creek to Deep Gap shelter - it was probably the best hiking day I have had all year. Warm in the morning, but everything was bright and shiny after five days of rain and there was a gentle breeze which cooled you off as soon as you  stopped. The birds, squirrels and insects were all very active with butterflies dive bombing me every few seconds. Saw a slew of thru-hikers - don’t remember the names of all of them. I did run into Ironman (the cold hiker from Saturday) . He looked a bit warmer, was much happier and told me about his journal at www.trailjournals.com.  

I headed back down to the road crossing, stopping for a while to watch a hawk hunting for his lunch.  As I was crossing the street to the parking lot, a thru-hiker came out of the woods behind me, I turned and handed him the full container of OJ. He thanked me and then went to a neighboring truck that was feeding hikers real food J I left to go get lunch and when I returned the same hiker had his thubm out to get a hitch. I opened the window and told him to hop in. After we got packs settled, etc, he got into the front seat, we looked at each other and said "hey, don’t I know you?" It was Spur GA ->ME’99 whom I had met at the Ruck in January. He had succesfully bid on the G4 pack, but decided at the last minute to leave it at home and had gone back to his reliable Jansport Minimalist.   We had a nice time chatting on the drive to Blueberry Patch. I filled him in on all the list activities and who was where and doing what. Spur also has a jounral at www.trailjournal.com. I discovered Datto hadn’t picked up any of his 6 boxes (yes, you read that right -6 ) so I decided he must still be on the trail and decided to go hang out at the trail head and read my book. I went to talk to the group of hikers enjoying the spread of food and heard the story about the litter of mice born in the top of one of the guys packs - he now has the trail name Mouse Daddy.  A few minutes later a very tired looking guy limped out of the woods with the worst bruise and blister on his leg I have ever seen! He had a stump "attack"  him at the shelter the night before and had backtracked from Plum Orchard in hopes to find a ride out to the hospital. I looked up and asked him if he wanted a ride - I thought he was going to fall over. He said he had been mulling over how in the world he was going to get to the ER for the whole 4 ½ miles - he just didn’t think it would be so easy! Jorge was given instructions to stay off his leg for ten days, so those of you lucky enough to go to Earthworm’s Easter Ruck will get to meet him. I am going to rescue
 
also has an on-line journal, his is at trailplace.  So now my question is, do I attract computer geeks or are they just everywhere?

When I finally got back from playing "trail nurse" , I got to settle in and had a couple nice hours of reading (I may have dozed off a bit). Ran into a couple hikers I had met a week before and we chatted a while, then a few others showed up and then, finally, Datto showed up and I gave the crew a ride back down the hill.  Rainbow and Datto’s excuse why it took them so long was that they had stopped for three hours at a spread at Addis Gap. Their primary complaint was that they are getting too much good food at the trail crossings and it is difficult to hike after eating eggs and sausage and bacon for three straight hours. I explained to Datto that I had brought fresh OJ and crouissants but that was okay cuz I gave them to Spur. He got very upset that I gave away HIS food until I "gently" explained that if I had known that Spur was there, I would have brought it for him anyway!

Arrived at Blueberry Patch and there were bunks for everybody although it was a full house. A couple showers later everyone was ready to go to Daniels for AYCE. Datto was shirtless so I generously gave him the demin shirt I was wearing - yes folks, I gave the man the shirt off my back! (I did have another one on though, despite what he may say). I forgot that it was a woman’s shirt and we all sat there for a few minutes watching him unsuccesfully try to button it.  He tried to convince us this was his first experience wearing women’s clothing, but given the source, we didn’t believe it.

Dinner was great, we even brought Spur back a big plate of fried chicken , mashed potatoes, and a dessert of strawberry shortcake. Datto pulled a few more things out of his pack for me to take including extra fleece and a couple small odds and ends and I drove home. It was a clear starlit night with a full moon, so bright you could see all the mountains in the distance. A beautiful ending to a fun weekend.

POG

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