I started my week with a visit to Bryan and Debbie Baine, a former coworker and their family. We had renewed our friendship a couple of years ago when Bryan’s son and my Hannah both started their freshman years at Gordon College. Bryan picked me up at the Punch Bowl Mountain overlook on Sunday evening, where the AT crosses the Blue Ridge Parkway and drove me to their home in Appomattox, VA, stopping along the way so that I could see one of his satellite coffee shops.
The next morning, after eating breakfast, finishing my blog post, making a resupply list and grocery shopping, we went to his bookstore/ coffee shop for lunch with the local Young Life area director, Allen Miller, with whom I was acquainted from the times he had a staff assignment at camp. It was nice to hear how his ministry was going and how his family was doing during our leisurely two and a half hour lunch. I spent the rest of the afternoon at the coffee shop relaxing by reading, ordering a pair of down booties, and watching eight retirees play bridge. If you are ever in Appomattox, be sure to visit Baine’s Books. Once again I’m reminded that the highlight of this hiking trip is getting to visit old friends that I don’t get to see often enough.
When I returned to the trail on Tuesday noon, the hiking was wonderful; the temperatures were in the 60s, skies clear and blue; the footpath was relatively smooth; and once I got to the mountain summit, there were several vistas where I could see forever- or at least as far as the grain elevators in Pettisville, OH.
I’ve heard it said that the pace of life is a little slower in the south. I also noticed that weather systems seem to move at a slower pace. For example, after a couple of cool cloudless days with lots of blue skies, I observed one afternoon, that the skies were no longer blue but had turned white as a new weather system was moving in. The following day was overcast with a few rain sprinkles. It wasn’t until early in the morning of the third day that it got around to the business of seriously raining. In the Northeast where I come from, like the inhabitants, the weather gets right to the point. It is often clear in the early morning hours and is pouring by noon.
The rainfall I hiked through on Friday seemed to confirm my decision to camp at a shelter after only 14 miles of hiking, even though I arrived there at 3 pm. Since the rain was supposed to continue all evening and throughout the night, and since no one else showed up, I disobeyed an etiquette rule and set up my hammock inside the shelter. This arrangement worked out well as long as it was not windy. In the late afternoon when it got windy, the acorns dropping onto the steel roofing panels sounded like big rocks falling onto the roof. I felt like Chicken Little.
My week ended after a 12 mile hike from this shelter and I arrived at Daleville, VA, where I enjoyed lunch at 3 L’il Pigs and checked into a motel for a zero. After a resupply I’ll be back on the trail.
Ken hikes the Appalachian Trail 