AT Day 29 Rutherford Shelter to Unionville Memorial Park

 Miles ~12
Total ~329

I'm a little shaken up becuase we're camping in a park in Unionville and these kids kept telling super racist jokes.  Things like "How do you get a nigger out of your backyard? -Hang one in the front yard."  They were doing it for about 20 minutes and I was gettin gmroe and mroe agitated. Finally I went over and told them the jokes were making me uncomfortable and coudl they please stop. Now i'm still shaken but nominally better. They stopped the jokes and their volume (which had been unnecessarily loud) went back to normal.  Ugh. and lately I've been thinking about how white the trail is.  If I was shaken by their careless racism, I can imagine that a person of color would be too.  Why do they think that's OK? Fuck.  Ruined my mood.  Let me try and refocus.  Bright side?  They did apologize and they did stop.

OK. Today's hike was lovely. From High Point to here was pleasant and smooth.  We stopped in at Jim Murray's property.  He keeps a cabin with electricity open fro thru hikers to use. Really nice.  We hung out there for an hour, mingling with our friends and then continued on here.
When we got here we hit the post office first and while we were there an older man ran his car over the post office sidewalk divider.   While it was funny, it was also a bit frightening.  We checked on the man who admitted that this is the 2nd time he's done this.   Then, with the help of another man in the lot we lifted his car up and over the sidewalk.  Then we backed as far away from the car as possible while the man drove off.  When all was said and done the other helper turned out to work for the city and he walked us over to the town park, showed us where to set up our tent and told us about all the good deals and dinners.   The park we are in is, literally, a city park. We are camped in the corner by the rose bush. There's a basketball court right next to us and children's park on the other side of us.  Very cute.

Jamie:  We ate/drank at Wit's End Tavern, the owner of which was very nice.  He lets campers camp in his yard.  We are in the Unionville Park-we imagined a state part type of place but it's more like someone backyard.  It is probably our nicest camping spot yet though.
Also, today we say a nice looking doe staring at us in the forest.  After taking a picture, we realized it didn't move. After shouting at it and waving our arms, we realized it was plastic. Excellent joke.  Also, Today we learned that the Orange Salamanders are just a phase in the long life cycle of the spotted newt.