Best day with a worst day ending!

There I awoke on August 2, 2013 to the most lovely sound God could bless a man on a mountain trail.  Women's voices!  Not one, not two, but a whole flock!  Instead of sleeping another hour or two I sprung to my feet ready to strut this sexy beast of a mountain man before these Amazonian women.  As climbed outside my tent and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes I was hit by a tidal wave of defeat.  One of those amazonian voices I heard in the distance mentioned Harry Potter.  Then, another voice shot back with something about Hunger Games.  Finally, I was TKO'd by a Justin Bieber comment.

Teeneeboppers! Why God! Why!!!!!

Then I realized why he tricked me in such I vial way.  It was sunny, perfectly clear, and a cool 70 degrees.  The best hiking weather I've seen yet.  A blessing in disguise... oh the trickery!

I quickly packed my stuff up and hit the trail.  Within about four miles I hit Rattlesnake Mountain and had an awesome view of the valley below for about 100 miles (pic below).  I hung out there for about an hour enjoying the view, making phone calls, having second breakfast (ya we do that), and drying out my gear from the previous days land hurricane.  I finally got off my duff and walked about one-hundred yards and ran into a cool 20 year old couple.  They were picking blue berries to mix in with the pancakes they were making.  I sat and visited with them for a bit.  They were very inquisitive of the trail.  They wanted to know things like: What's it cost? How many miles per day? How much food? How heavy is my pack? And how do you get a cool name like Shake-N-Bake?  I gave them the knowledge they sought and wished them a good day.

I charged down the hill past a shelter, a south-bounder, a cool swamp (pic below), and a large snake.  In no time I made it to town.  The guide book didn't say anything about businesses being right off the trail but, I could see a few establishments that might have the object of my desire.  A Pepsi!  Sure enough, there was a fishing store towards the end that had a freezer full of stuff.  I grabbed a water, Gatorade, and my illustrious Pepsi like I was Gollum from Lord of the Rings.  Of course in this story the ring (Pepsi) was swallowed and consumed in a matter of seconds.  No trilogy, and no bloody fingers necessary.

As I headed back to the trail, trail magic número two happened.  An older gentleman named Snores offered me a ride, coke, and beer to the next shelter (2 miles ahead).  You should know by now that I'm no trail nazi... so I hopped in and a few minutes later was drinking some Budweiser, relaxing, and telling my story. After about an hour I packed up, thanked Snores, and hit the road again.

As luck would have it, at the very next shelter I ran into a men's only church retreat.  Down south we call them Mancations!  I got the impression that a lot of these guys had turned some really bad times into good by accepting Jesus into their lives.  One fellow in particular named John, chatted with me for about an hour.  We talked about the trail, the government, the bible, God, his church, and a lot of other things.  Then, they offered me and a south-bounder spaghetti.  Good conversation and good food ... well that's double trail magic in my book for total of four.

Eventually, I said good bye to the church group and was on my way. I had this idea in my head that I was going to hike all night.  However, I rolled my ankle three times (an omen in my book) and decided to call it a night when I reached a wooden platform (24 mile day) in High Point State Park that overlooks the tree canopy for miles.  I debated setting up my tent on this platform because the skies were clear, the stars were out, and it would be kind of tacky if someone came by in the morning.  I had never cowboy camped before but, this was the perfect night and a really great spot.  After star gazing for a bit I eventually fell asleep.

Then...

About 2 hours later I awoke to water droplets landing on my face.  It took me few seconds to realize what was going on, and then I noticed some dark shadows in the sky.  Too late! The heavens bursted open and the winds picked up something fierce.  I jumped to my feet and scrambled for my footprint, poles, and rain fly. I got the first two setup easy enough, but the guylines on my rain fly were all tangled.  Furthermore, the wind was blowing the rain fly and everything else around like crazy.  Eventually, I got the fly on and also managed to tie it down using a post, my backpack, and hiking pole.  Unfortunately, my sleeping bag, my mattress, my pillow, footprint, and me were soaked.  So what genius thing did I do next to fix that?...

Absolutely nothing! Ain't no dryers around here!  I climbed into my wet sleeping bag, and maybe got an hour of sleep as it poured with the wind thrashing my tent around into the morning.

Touché... Touché!