Earth Day

Last night was such a good sleep that I didn’t want to get out of my bag so I got a late start this morning. As soon as I got off the hill and out of the wind, it was warm and perfect weather all day. I had a couple of longer breaks throughout the day and my hiker hunger is definitely back. There were a few days last week that I wasn’t very hungry at all, but they were warmer days and it’s definitely chillier again.

I ran into a couple of day hikers and stopped to talk and realized I no longer get asked if I’m a thru hiker, they just assume I am. Before people would ask because you could be out here just doing a small section, not necessarily thru hiking. So them assuming I’m a thru hiker makes me wonder just how bad I smell.

Wildflowers have been popping up along the trail finally in the past week or so and I noticed today that some of the rhododendrons and mountain laurels are starting to get little buds on them so hopefully they will be blooming soon. Spring is slowly showing itself. And today is Earth Day! Stretch and I picked up some trash at lunch to celebrate.

There was a fire tower at the end of the day we were looking forward to in order to get some nice views but it turned out that of all 3 towers there, not one of them could be gotten into. Fences and locks and barbed wire, not to mention grumpy people working there. It was just annoying because we went off trail to see these towers. We don’t like to waste mileage.

We had planned on hiking into Jones Meadow to camp, but stopped at a cool campsite just before it instead around 6:30. It was a fairy tale forest looking area and had water right there, plus people were starting a nice campfire. I was all setup and finished eating when Uncle Buck came into camp and said there was going to be a meteor shower tonight. I ran down the trail to check out the meadow and decided to move there since it had a great view of the clear sky. I carried my tent down with everything in it and re-staked it. I’m not crazy about being on a road but there are plenty of us camped here and we have another good fire here too. 13.4 miles today.

I hope I wake up (or someone wakes me up) in time to see the meteors. I’ve never seen a shower before.

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5 Comments

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  1. Happy Earth Day to you too!! 🙂

  2. Yes, we all smell really bad! They said that you get used to it but so far I didn’t…

    Hope you get through the hot zone between Hot Springs and Erwin without catching the virus!

    See you up there (if you hurry up)

  3. I can smell you from here. 🙂 Your campsite looks so cute. Love following along with you on your adventure! Miss you DP!

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