TRAIL DAY 106
Sun, June 5, 2016 Departure day. Group-photo day. Pay-up-and-return day. One of those sober mornings when things must be gathered together packed up and selves prepared for leave-taking.
The group picture with all 16 of us was taken by Innkeeper Becky Reeves. Husband, George, was not around. The one or two times I did see him, he was in khaki pants and shirt, looking very much like the handyman I’m sure he needed to be without end.
It was 2:30 p.m. by the time I said my good-byes and Bonnie drove me back to the parking area where she had picked me up 3 days before.
Everyone knew that the trail had me – that I would return to it – that my birthday was just a short interlude to the main mission of my life at the time. Like a huge ocean-going vessel moored at the harbor, the vessel of my adventure was moored where I had left it – at the start of the next mile. It was a given. It was accepted. I would return to walking northward. Good-byes were not mournful – there was an underlying purpose afoot and we were all part of it in our own way. It was time to return to busy lives and time to return to the trail.
Bonnie returned Theo and me to the parking lot, we donned our packs, crossed the street and waved good-bye. As is often the case and as it was at Danville, Virginia, there was a steep section of trail leaving a road. Sometimes such leaving-pavement sections were very steep. This one was moderate.
I waved to Bonnie as I entered the woods and started hiking. A short way up the hill, I stopped and turned around to catch the back of her “heavenly” blue CAELI after a U-turn for the drove back to Middletown. It was a poignant sight.
There would be a gentle 1000′ climb and descent before nightfall and the next shelter. The trail was smooth and unencumbered but for a fallen tree. A light rain fell en route.
The shelter had the first solar shower I’d seen on the trail. “Solar” meaning an elevated barrel of water “warmed” by the sun. With a few days in the lap of luxury under my belt, I didn’t feel the need to test it out.
Having a shower is one thing but this shelter was extraordinary. A sign directed us to a separate pavilion for food preparation and consumption to keep all such enticing odors away from the shelter which was clean and neat and well constructed. It sat on concrete pillars and had a large porch with a sturdy fence-railing around it.
There were a couple of guys in their 50s there when I arrived. We chatted about hiking. They were day hiking and were impressed with my adventure. As we ate supper, I mentioned that the stand for my stove canister had broken and one of the guys said he had two and I was welcomed to one of them. I accepted his generosity with thanks.
As we were hanging around, a young couple showed up.
Oh yea! And one of the guys was hiking with his daughter or niece. She slept on an upper level above her relative on the left side of the shelter, looking in. I slept on the right. The young couple slept on the porch.
Day #106 US 522 > Jim & Molly Denton Shelter 5.2 miles