After the festivities last night, Mr. Fantastic and I were dragging a little. Our stuff had mostly dried out though, which we were very thankful for. All my electronics were fully charged (iphone, gopro, solio charger), and I was able to download more audiobooks from Audible for good measure.
I started off toward the closest gear shop which opens up at 10am. The guy there was very helpful. I picked up some backpacker meals, 5oz of denatured alcohol to top me off, a rubber bowl (because I'm sick of cleaning my cooking pot), and a steripen. It's what they had at the store, and it's case comes with a solar charger; which is very handy on the trail.
Mr. Fantastic and I signed the hiker logbook there and continued down Main Street to a little malt shop to gorge ourselves on one last delicious meal before embarking.
With fries, brownies and ice cream settling, we walked another couple blocks to Ingles to get our food shopping done. In case you don't know, Ingles is made in America.
We had to stock up enough food to last about 8 days. The most we've packed thus far. It was quite a challenge, and a little nerve-racking. I still can't fit it all in my bear bag, so some things are strung up outside of the bag.
We each opened and repackaged our food supplies to do away with excess garbage (carry in, carry out), while waiting for our shuttle to come pick us up.
Once back on the trail we had an 8 mile hike ahead of us. The only challenge was that we didn't get back to the trail until around 1:45pm. Thankfully we're still getting stronger everyday, so we were able to pull into our shelter by 5:30pm with ease. We worried about rain, but made it before the clouds opened up. That happened while we were eating dinner with a few vaguely familiar faces.
I cooked up some Santa Fe style rice and chicken. It was insanely filling. I do so love those expensive dehydrated backpacker meals!
Tonight finds us with four dogs in camp (the most we've seen), and the first time some people had seen the moon since they got out here. Having taken quite a few midnight strolls into the bushes, I've seen the moon plenty of times after the haze clears from early evening. It's always good to be back out here, especially with absolutely no knee problems. I think I've finally solved that problem.
Hopefully our friends can catch up with us, but we're hoping to start upping the pace. You have to keep moving if your food is going to last. Plus Trail Days, a big hiker celebration in Damascus, VA, is coming up and we'll have to push to make. It's a bit of a long shot, but if we can average 16 miles a day from now until May 19th we'll make it to the party. We only found out about this out here, and while we have no real need to go, it would be a great experience for the trip. Here's hoping we can meet the challenge.
