Day 29

Hiking the Bald

Starting mile 338.3

I got up knowing I would be going into town. I got moving by 6:30 am so I could get into town by 9:00 and get cleaned up. It was mostly downhill so I figured I would make it fine. At about mile four I ran into “Lobo”, and we hiked the remaining two miles into Uncle Johnny’s. We made it just before 9:00. If we wanted to, we could have jumped on the shuttle into town, but we decided it would be better to take care of things at the hostel first.

I claimed a spot in the hammock shed for the night and headed for the shower. After taking a long hot shower, my first in eight days, it was time to do laundry. I had to wait for a load to finish, but that gave time for “Lobo” to throw his laundry in with mine. We relaxed while our laundry was getting done. It finished shortly before the 11 am shuttle into town, so we quickly got our clothes out and threw them on the clothesline.

A bunch of us jumped on the shuttle and headed into town. We got dropped off at the grocery store and all scattered. I went with “Big Time” and we found something to eat. There weren’t a lot of options close to where we were, so we just grabbed burgers at a local restaurant. It was a great lunch. BT and I had a great conversation. He was in the military, and we were able to connect over that.

After lunch it was back to the grocery store to resupply. When we got to the grocery store, I put my hand in my pocket and my id and credit card wasn’t in my pocket. I started to panic a little. I turned to head back to the restaurant thinking I might have left them there. Then I noticed there was a hole in the pocket of the loaner pants I was wearing. Luckily the sweats I was wearing had cuffs, so my cards were stuck in them. I was relieved that I had found everything. I don’t know what I would have done if I list my id and credit cards.

Back at the grocery store I resupplied for the next four days. Instead of waiting for the next shuttle at 4 pm, several of us got an Uber back to the hostel. Then it was just relaxing for the afternoon while more and more people kept showing up. In the end we had a packed house with tents galore. It was going to be a fun night.

A little before seven I decided to go to a local taproom a little over a mile away. I sat down ordered a beer and got them to put on a hockey playoff game. Amber, another thru hiker came in and joined me. We spent the next couple hours talking, having a few beers, and watching the game. The bar closed at 9 pm so I couldn’t finish the game. I headed back to the hostel in the dark.

When I got back to the hostel there was a fire going with lots of people sitting around it. I joined them for a while before some others came back with more beer. I joined them down by the river and had a couple more beers. We ended up staying up until midnight, and I’m not talking hiker’s midnight. I had more beer tonight and stayed up later than I have in a long time. We all had a great time.

I did 6.3 miles with about 500 feet of elevation gain. I’ve got a little over 125 miles to get to Damascus and should get there in about a week.

Ending mile 344.6