The problem with having a bounce box is having to bounce it before you leave. The easiest method is top use the computer and printer at the hotel to print out the label and request pick up. "Budget" also means "no convenience for you!!" As the post office is 5 miles away, I'm not walking there. "budget"also means "I drive you there and back....$10". No. My unreasonable-ness costs us a few hours. Eventually, the Virginia creepers come through and save the day. A free ride to the post office! Zag and I discuss our strategy (actually, it was HER strategy): I get to ride to the post office and she gets to start hiking...since I walk faster than she does, she can get a head start.
Seems logical. We both left the motel at 11am. 14 miles to get to
Knot maul branch shelter with several climbs.
FYI, the post mistress looks alarmingly like Sandra Bullock (brunette version).
I got to talk to Andrea for a good while which was nice. I was on the phone with her describing all the lovely scenery when I noticed a big brown lump with lots of grass grown up around it. It was the carcass of a cow. So bizarre. Just a brown hide draped over a skeleton. No soft tissue left at all. Big, sun-bleached bones protruding from the rag tag drape. I'm fascinated by things of this sort. The chance to stand in the middle of a pasture and look closely at this magnificent display. I didn't touch anything, nor was I disrespectful in any way. Just sincere wonderment. It hardly smelled, the decay process was nearly complete...the skull had been dragged about 20 feet away.
Today was a day of many fence crossings. There are a few clever ways that have been devised for hikers to cross a fence, wearing a full pack, and neither the fence nor hiker be harmed. Theses are called "stiles". The popular method for this area seems to be the "up and over" via two 2x4 ladders joined at roughly a 30° to 45° angle over the fence. The scariest part to me is stepping over the top, turning around and coming down...without getting my hiking poles tangled up in the laser, the fence, or my legs. I think I crossed 10 or so fences today.
I caught zag at the 3 mile point..she was taking a snack break at a spot where there once was a shelter. It had been deconstructed, but the privy and the picnic table remained.
Saw lots more cows today, 2 snakes (one dead, one alive), lots of new flowers, and gobs of beautiful scenery.
My feet hate me for my freshly reloaded food bag. I promised them if they would get me to the river, I'd reward them with a good long icy soak. We both got what we needed: I got there, they got soaked.
Today was a really long day, physically and mentally. I don't like getting a late start and having 14 miles to go made it even worse. I feel the need to walk at an even faster pace which makes me more miserable at the end of the day.
"All the way"(he was the guy at the laundromat in Damascus that went and got the frozen custard at dairy king), hammer, granbob, in shelter with me. Zag tenting.
Pics: carcass; flowers; snake (alive); fence stile.
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