I awoke to the sound of an alarm going off at 4:45am. Though it wasn’t mine or Mulligan’s. It was coming from the motel room next to us. And no one was shutting it off. Which meant it was probably set by the person who was in the room two nights before. So it just buzzed and buzzed and buzzed. I got up at 5am and showered. Since the motel didn’t include breakfast, I made some coffee quietly in our room, grabbed a pop tart and maneuvered my way towards the desk.  Our clothes were still hanging on the clothesline draped through the middle of the room from the night before. I sat and sipped my coffee quietly and caught up on some work.

When Mulligan got up we took our clothes back outside to finish drying in the sunshine. He ate breakfast and pounded 4 beers left over from last night. I don’t know how he does it, and before hiking too!? 🙂 But it’s not like we’d want to carry them all day hiking, or throw them away. Gram Cracker stopped by to coordinate taking us back to the trail. We finished packing and hopped in her SUV and were off. We arrived back at the Bushy Mountain Grill, thanked Gram Cracker for her kindness, and went into the grill for a snack before getting back on the trail.

We met a few other hikers outside: Detour, Siren and iPhone. I had run into iPhone a few times over the past couple of days. We just smiled, said hello, and that was it. He’s Chinese and didn’t speak much English. He had to be around 70 years old. His pack was huge. Looked like it weighed 50-70 lbs. He moved really slow and steady. Can you imagine going to another country, not speaking their language, at the age of 70, and hiking 2200 miles in the woods? Amazing 🙂

We had a short but hot walk to start the day off. We walked down the road with no coverage from any trees. It’s amazing how much hotter it is out of the woods. We met another hiker by the name of Bacon as we reached the trailhead and started a steep climb back up into the mountains.

We reached the first place to get water. It was at a shelter .3 miles off trail. That’s not that bad of a detour, but the water source was actually another .3 miles beyond the shelter. So 1.2 miles just to get water. Not ideal. But we needed water so we headed that way.

We almost reached the shelter when I looked up and saw my first snake on the trail! It was a big one. A big black rat snake. Of course I snapped some pics. Mulligan tapped the ground next to it to get it moving. It worked. It was pretty cool watching it slither across the ground. These snakes can move pretty quickly. We got some video too then headed down the hill to get our water. When we got back up Mulligan decided to take a nap. “We just got started!” I said. He just laughed. I’m sure his nap had nothing to do with the 4 beers he pounded earlier that morning 🙂

Bacon and Surly showed up at the shelter for water as well. I talked to Surly about his new trail name. He said the definition of Surly is bad-tempered and unfriendly. So he wasn’t sure that was a good trail name. I agreed. I’m surprised his favorite bike co. was named Surly. There’s a brewing co. with that name too. I’m not sure why anyone or business would want that as a name. So back to the drawing board for a trail name for Tim.

I marched on. Shortly after leaving the shelter I ran into Gram Cracker and Jackie. They were headed southbound. I stopped and talked with them for a bit. Gram Cracker graciously offered me an electrolyte drink. We must have been talking for awhile as Mulligan finished his nap and caught up with me. I split the electrolyte drink with him. We all exchanged contact info and promised we’d contact them if we needed anything.

We hiked along a ridge line covered by trees and the wind was blowing so we stayed pretty cooled off. We stopped for a quick lunch and pressed on traveling over several rolling hills. We crossed the 600 mile marker and snapped some pics. There wasn’t any water for miles. By this time Mulligan had hiked ahead of me. I came to a road crossing and there was a water cooler and cups left by a nearby hostel. I drink some but left some for others coming behind me.

About that time another thru hiker showed up. His name was Iron Pony. I was kind of dragging before he got there. After we finished our water we started hiking together. It’s strange when you have someone to hike with you kind of carry each other along, moving much quicker, than hiking by yourself. We chatted as we hiked getting to know each other. Him and his buddies were in their early 20’s doing 20-25 miles a day. He was trying to catch up with them. He thought they might be at the next shelter. Which is where I was headed for the evening.

All seemed to be going well until he very noticeably started hiking a lot faster. I was thinking, did I say something wrong, was I moving too slow, what happened? I kept up but he did get to the shelter first. He threw his stuff down on the ground and ran into the privy and slammed the door! Oh, he really needed to go to the bathroom I guess. I chuckled to myself 🙂

Iron Pony’s friends weren’t at the shelter so he refilled on water and hit the trail after them. I got water as well. I drink 2 liters. There were only a few people at the shelter at that. Me, Mulligan, Peep Squeak, iPhone, and Tim (formally known as Surly). Peep Squeak got his name because his shoes squeaked. IPhone was always on his iPhone.

I talked to Tim about his trail name again. He drove a school bus, road bikes, jogged a lot, and now has hiked a lot of miles. I suggested “Miles”. That’s a pretty cool name I thought. He liked it and said he’d think about it.

We all cooked and ate dinner together. IPhone kept to himself mostly. Tim spoke with him a little. It appeared they were hiking together somewhat, which  I thought was nice. Again, being in another country, not knowing anyone, not speaking the native language, I could imagine would be difficult. Mulligan and I thought, why don’t we use Google Translate and try to talk to him. We entered “how was your hike today?” and translated it to Chinese. We verbally fumbled over the translation but he perked up and smiled and lifted his fist and stuck his thumb up, signifying “good”. We smiled back and nodded our heads “good” 🙂

We finished our dinners, tossed our food bags up in the trees away from any potential bears, and climbed into our tents for the evening. I caught up on some work items, writing, and then passed out in my sleeping bag.

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