We made it back to the trail, ready to do our first key swap. But the week ended with another injury, several days of thunderstorms, and we headed to Trail Days.
| Miles Since Last Update | Total Miles Hiked | Miles Remaining |
|---|
20.3
127.2
1880.9
Well, we made it back to the trail and are ready to do our first key swap. However, we chose to leave my truck at the end where we planned to end the day, and get a shuttle to the top to do a 13-mile downhill back to Uncle Johnny’s. We did this so the young bucks wouldn’t have to do a 13-mile uphill.
The trail was nice, and since it was all downhill, we were booking it and making good time.
We got to a place called Beauty Spot; however, the fog was moving in.
About halfway through, Jerry began having problems with his bad foot. Every step was painful. He was trying to hide it from me. Nice try. It was a slow downhill the rest of the way to the truck, but we made it. We headed into town to eat real quick, with a plan to drive up to beauty spot so we could camp for the night, since our base camp wouldn’t be ready for us to check into the next day.
As we began to head back, Tony’s tummy started to give him trouble, and he said he wanted to stay in a hotel instead so he could have a real bathroom. The only hotel in Erwin was booked, so we had to drive down to Mars Hill to get a room.
The next morning, we headed back out; this time, Jerry would shuttle as his foot was still hurting. He dropped us off, and we did a quick six or so miles, where Jerry picked us up in the middle of the Helen detour and took us to our base camp, Roan Mountain State Park. This would be our home for the next 4 days while we hopefully finish up most of Tennessee.
Later that evening, the weather report came through…rain..very heavy rain and possible flooding. We decided to call it a rain day and instead headed to Boone, NC where there was an outfitter and a guy who specialized in foot problems. Needless to say, he now has a new pair of shoes and insoles. His shoes, while they only had about 200 miles on them, they were well past done due to how he walks. The guy told us to expect to have to replace his shoes about every 200 miles.
The next day showed thunderstorms, so again it was decided we would wait it out.
The day before we were to pack up and leave, it had rained the prior day. I woke up at 6 am, we were going to do about 6 miles before the afternoon Thunderstorms were to hit, but Helen mentioned the trail was probably going to be really muddy and we should probably zero today as well.
Headed to Trail Days
The next day, we packed up and headed to Damascus for Trail Days. Since we had the truck, I could buy stuff, lol.
Helen and Tony got some gear fixed, and we got some devastating news. Josh, a friend of ours, someone we thought of as a son, and one of Jerry’s soldiers, had died. We were hiking our way to him (he lived in New York right off the trail and was so excited to come get us).
We tried to make it through trail days. We met a lot of people who follow us. But on Saturday, we couldn’t take it anymore and left. Helen and Tony had already taken off to do all the raffles, so we texted them to let us know when they wanted to be picked up, that we were headed back to the hotel.
We never heard from them, and it was getting late, so Jerry texted Tony, and he said they would get an Uber. I went ahead and booked our next campsite, as we decided to go ahead and leave Sunday instead of Monday, since nothing was going on Monday.
Later that evening, they came in and said they had booked themselves a room at the hotel next door and wanted to get their stuff out of the truck so they could go through it. I let them know I had gone ahead and booked our next campsite, and we would leave tomorrow since there was nothing going on.
We still aren’t quite sure what happened after we left Trail Days, but Jerry ended up going down to the truck when he saw them getting their trekking poles, which didn’t make sense. They ended up telling Jerry that people at Trail Days were telling them they would never get to Katahdin unless they did 20-mile days and that they needed to stop hiking with us, so they were going to split off from us. Apparently, that was the gist of it.
So we wished them well and now had to figure out what to do next. My mother left for a two-week cruise the day before, which meant we couldn’t take my truck back for another two weeks. We had no interest in hiking without each other and key swapping that way. Plus, we had to figure out if I could cancel the campsite. We had spent all that money to get my truck and camping supplies, and only had it for a week. What was supposed to save us money ended up costing us. When it rains, it pours.
But we know how to roll with the punches. We decided to knock out some other bucket list items in the area while we waited for my Mom to return. We knocked out three state high points, visited some places we had wanted to see along the trail, chased some waterfalls, and spent quality time together as we mourned Josh’s death.
We aren’t done with the trail and will be back to it soon. Will we complete it this year? Probably not, given how things have been going, but we’re going to try. However, if we don’t, we’re okay with that. We will continue until we are done, and then return next year if necessary. At the end of the day, we are doing this trail to experience the trail, not for a title.
We want to see the trail, meet locals, get to know the history of the area, and simply enjoy making all these memories together.
It’s not about the miles….it’s about the smiles and as long as we are together, we are rich in them.
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