It was still pouring this morning so no one in the shelter even moved until after 9:00. Usually people get going much earlier than that. I found out via text that Stretch and Storytime were tenting not too far away and they and all of their gear were soaked. We knew that we could hitch into Buchanan 3.1 miles down the trail so we decided to go into town for a bit to dry out. The rain was mostly stopped by the time I left the shelter after 11:00 and I was soon at the road.

There was almost no traffic but shortly after everyone else arrived, a pickup truck stopped. Lorraine and Jimmy were headed into Buchanan any way so we hopped in the back and were there quickly. The farther we got down the mountain, the nicer the weather got, and it was sunny and almost 90 degrees in town. We were dropped off at a gas station right across from a boating outfitter.

I had called Twin River Outfitters earlier to see if they had any cabins and they didn’t, but the guy did say we could hang our stuff to dry on their back porch while we were in town. Since the sun was shining, we went over there to spread things out before going to eat, and they couldn’t have been more friendly. Not only could we leave our stuff there to dry, they had leftover picnic food we could eat. When the weather turned crappy again, they said we couldn’t tent by the river because it was set to flood tonight, but we could sleep on the porch. Excellent trail magic and these people aren’t even listed in the AT Guide. River trash is pretty much the same as hiker trash though so we all get along.

The weather alternated between heavy rain and gorgeous, sunny blue skies several times. The first rain was the heaviest and actually got almost the whole porch wet so I hope that doesn’t happen again during the night. There are two bathrooms we can hide in if necessary though. There is a tornado watch going on right now too.

Around dinner time, the couple who owns the tavern across the street came over and dropped off sandwiches, a big bag of chips, and a big jar of sweet tea for the four of us. They had given Outside Dog a ride earlier while he was running errands so they knew we were staying back here. Again, excellent trail magic!

We’ve just been sitting back here on the Adirondack chairs with an excellent view of the river. We set up tents sans flies on the porch to avoid bugs and in case sideways rain does happen again, flies can be put on quickly.

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