First, a story.
3:03 AM. Cheyanne wakes me up, whispering into my tent. "Hey, there's somebody over there."
My senses come into focus and I sit up straight, unzip my tent, and sure enough, there's a small light about fifty feet away, illuminating the lowest of tree branches and not a lot else.
I climb out of my tent and observe the unknown light source. It's moving, but just some. It's definitely a person.
I'm a little on guard seeing as how three in the morning is a totally unreasonable time for anyone to be night hiking. Plus, they're not hiking, they're totally stagnant.
It's freaking me out at this point, and I decide on one of two course of action, sneak up on said person without using my headlamp to better observe them, or call out to them in the darkness. I decide on the former, not wanting to reveal myself.
I begin to creep through the dark, guided by a clear sky and a large moon, only partially filtered by the dense forest canopy. I'm kind of amazed at the ease in which I'm performing this task and briefly consider pursuing a career in espionage.
I get close enough to see the person. It's a man. A large, bearded man. And they're on their phone. It looks like they're checking Facebook. This disarms me completely and I decide that I'm the freak in this situation, spying on another hiker checking status updates in the dark of night.
I go back over to Cheyanne and tell her the news, to which she replies, "What if he's googling how to kill three people instead of just one?" A joke, ha ha. But what if?! So I spend the next half hour watching John Doe, before he suddenly turns a crazy bright headlamp on and walks off on the AT, northbound. Gotta be a hiker, right?
Fast forward to now:
There's no camping allowed for the next sixteen miles of trail because it's all privately owned farmland. This presented us with the small problem of where to stay without getting fined or arrested or harassed, but once again, our homie Phu pulled through and is letting us stay in his "hostel" (really, a hotel) room in Boiling Springs.
Don't believe me that it's farmland? Take a look.
And another:
No more mountains. At least not for awhile. In fact we won't go back above 3000 feet until Massachusetts. Bummer.
On a positive note, I got to ride a super shitty mongoose (walmart brand) bike to the grocery store from the ATC today. It was dope.
Ballin'.
Also, Boiling Springs is fairly interesting/pretty.
Also, I got new shoes after spending about 650 miles in the previous.
ALSO, I just caught a brown recluse in the shower of this hostel. Making it my sixth brown recluse seen, captured, and relocated on the trail.
And in case you're ever wondering what kind of food I'm eating on trail, this should give you a pretty good idea:
Lotta bars: macro, vega, probar, raw revolution. Lucy's cookies. Vega electrolytes. Trail mix (with dark chocolate almonds). Almond butter. Dehydrated quinoa and beans. Dark chocolate. Oatmeal. Rice. Rice noodles. Backpacker Pantry Pad Thai. Outdoor Herbivores. Thai Kitchen spring onion soup. A "renola". A bobo bar. Powdered greens and magnesium. And raw meal.
Oh, plus I also pack out some tortilla chips and maybe some produce (bananas, avocados).
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