Saturday, March 25, 2023
Miles: 5.1
Elevation gain/loss: 489′ gain, 610′ loss
I was awake by 5:50am and on trail by 6:25am. I was at the road by 8am, but then had to figure out how to get into town. I tried hitch hiking for 45 minutes and then started calling trail angels. My Airbnb was ready whenever I wanted to arrive, but they were busy this morning and couldn’t give me a ride into town. It took a few different phone calls, but I found someone who would come to get me!
Trail angel Kevin gave me a ride from the trailhead to the Dollar General and then over to my Airbnb. I did a quicker resupply than I normally would and forgot one or two things (like super glue for my gaiter velcro). The Airbnb was nice, though the host was a bit strange. She and her husband were standoffish, though she did follow through on her original promise to run my laundry. Instead of messaging me on Airbnb, calling me, or knocking on the room’s door, she would show up on the patio and shout my name. It put me on edge because I never knew when she was going to show up and demand my presence (while I was clothed in my rain shell and a towel for that matter). She randomly showed up at my door and insisted that another hiker passing through be allowed to paw through the hiker box in my room. I stood in the door and told her I’d bring it out in a minute. A few hours later, she yelled for me on the patio and wanted to know if I’d ‘be nice’ and allow two random hikers who were going to camp on her lawn into my bathroom to shower. I noticed she wasn’t offering her bathroom, and I said that I’d ‘pass on it for today.’
I’d hoped to get some down time in town, but sadly, the Airbnb host kept it from being relaxing. The small Airbnb also had more than a dozen American flag/Reaganite/nationalistic plaques, even including a plate with Reagan dressed up like a cowboy. I did enjoy feeding carrots to her horses in the peaceful quiet before she returned from her morning of thrifting.
It was nice to shower, do laundry, resupply, charge my devices, and do a bunch of other town chores. It was refreshing to be inside and sitting down, and having a bit of a recovery day. I hung out in my room for the rest of the day until heading to bed. I had to turn on the room’s fan in order to sleep though, because the Airbnb’s host’s TV shared a wall with me and they were loudly watching something in the late evening.
Transcending Mountains 