Today was a beautiful day. Blue sky, warm weather. The section hikers who stayed with us were planning on heading to the next shelter down, so we figured we'd see them there. Pretty nice guys. Took off a little after Beandip, Spirit Crusher (she absolutely hates when I call her that) and Dino, but ran into the girls pretty quickly.
I decided to walk with them today. I knew I probably wouldn't make as much mileage as I'd intended, but I really like their company. Also, there's always the possibility that I might not see them again, so I wanted to spend the day with them. It was a good one, if a bit long. We definitely took our time, and took some very long breaks, which of course is my favorite part.
Had my mind blown today, for the second time in the same way. Just as shocked as when I met Dragonborn and found out she was a female. Dinosaur is into LARPing. First, I didn't know Germany had Live Action Role Playing, and second, I never expected a young lady to be involved. I asked her a bunch of questions about it, and it kind of sounds fun. She got into it because they used to take a bunch of kids to the events, and she picked it up from there. If I'm ever in Germany again maybe I'll get her to take me to one. Not sure I've got the guts to go to one in America.
When we got to the next shelter, the section hikers were there, and they'd run out to the store and brought back some trail magic, Gatorade and Twix. They went from being pretty nice to outstanding gentleman at that point. I can easily be bought. Beandip had an interesting observation about Trail Magic. She said, "Basically all these nice people are giving us food and stuff because we decided to walk in the woods." Good point.
Our next stop was The Captain's. The Captain is a random guy who has a house right beside the AT, but across a wide stream. So obviously, given that scenario, you build a zip line across the creek and have an open invitation for all hikers to come and camp in your yard. This guy leaves a fridge stocked with cokes on his back porch, has several very friendly dogs, left his wifi password posted so we could use it, and is just all around awesome. Unfortunately, he wasn't home. These things were all things he left out for thru-hikers, and we definitely partook. Just playing with the dogs was good for our spirits, I think. Wish we could have met him.
We didn't stay. Wanted to, but at some point you actually have to make mileage, which was something I haven't done much of in past two days. So we pressed on. And immediately regretted it. Right after The Captain's, there was a steep hill that was one mile long. Very unpleasant.
Eventually we made the next shelter, though, where Thin Mint, Grasshopper, and Resistance were staying. I gave Resistance her name earlier in the day. She was this far in without a trail name. She also resisted the lure of town, so with all this resistance going on, I told her that should be her name. She seems okay with it so far.
Dino and I played two more games of Diamonds. I won the first, though it was close, and she won the second. It was tied up going into the last hand, but she pulled it off. Everyone else was already in bed, so we racked out, also. I'm going to try to go a little farther than they plan tomorrow, but I really enjoyed hanging out with the foreigners today.
Me on the zip line to The Captain's.
Dinosaur playing with one of the vicious guard dogs.
Dino's drawing of us on a pirate ship. That's me in the back singing a German pirate song (shanty?).
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