October 22
Miles: ~15
Total: 1853.4
Today we had some excellent weather, which initially inspired some really great hiking for the first five miles of our day. We were going through some nice ridges as well so the scenery really seemed to fit well with the temperature and sunshine. At five miles we encountered some trail magic of Pepsi and Snickers bars (thanks!), and we came to Uncle Johnny's Hostel soon after that. We had a maildrop sent to the hostel, but to our dismay it hadn't arrived. We called the post office, but the packages for the day had already left and they didn't know what was on the truck so we waited at the hostel.
Getting held up when there are miles to be hiked can be frustrating and make us somewhat anxious, but today this was not the case. We'd made excellent miles the last couple of days and needed to charge up all our gadgets anyways, so chilling out on a nice covered porch/pavilion didn't exactly require any arm pulling. Jamie even found someone to play cribbage with and one of the guys who helps run the hostel showed up with chili dogs that he won (one of those things where you drop your business card in the bucket and they pick a winner every week). Well we all won, didn't we?! We had such a good time chatting and hanging out that it was almost sort of a let down when our package ended up coming in around 12:30. Well, we ended up just hanging around for another hour and a half anyways!
Jamie had consumed so much coffee at the hostel that he felt a little bit sick while hiking for a bit. We only made it another ten miles by the time dark was about to set in, which, incidentally, brought us right to a nice camping area that was recommended by the hostel owner.
At the hostel Shannon had picked up a bunch of dried veggies that we used to jazz up our dinner. It was absolutely amazing how filling it made our meal! We'll be looking forward to adding them to our dinners for the next few nights. Its the little things on the trail, it really is...
Well, we have to make it to Hot Springs for Thursday where we will be meeting Billy (Jamie's brother) and spending some time with him, Alicia, Katrina, Cady, and Eric (we are very excited to see them), so that means we need to do some miles if we are to get into town at a decent hour (and our inadvertent easy day today means more to do over the next few days). Good weather on the forecast though, so we are looking forward to this next portion. Until next time!
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