We got up really early to have breakfast with Steve and Deb, coffee with home fries and fresh cheese. We sat with Steve until around 8, when the post office opened, grabbed our resupply and headed out of town. Some people driving by stopped us to talk as they were from the Yellow Deli - a hostel system with two AT hostels. We headed down the trail from here, road walking out of town. We had a lot of road walking to do today and we got rained on pretty much every time we stepped onto the road this morning. We also missed where the trail went back through a field and ended up doing much longer road walk than anticipated! It was still very pretty as we were walking uphill through a rural neighborhood with lots of field.
A misty day in the fields
We alternated woods and road walking several times and took a high water bypass in the early afternoon. As soon as we were walking on the road I saw a bear go darting across the street. We saw a bag of garbage on the other side of the road and guessed we interrupted his meal. We did a whole lot of road walking from this point before heading back into a sopping wet field and a nasty wet and flooded trail. It was supposed to be scenic waterfalls but it was honestly just a mess. We did some more road walking and decided to check cell phone coverage before heading on.
We rang it... And it was LOUD!
I had a message from a blog follower saying she could help us out if we were having a tough time finding a place to camp. Since we were on mostly private land and had already done 17.5 miles (2:30 pm), we decided to shoot her a message. She offered to let us stay at her house in their camper and we agreed to meet her at 6 pm at a road crossing. This gave us the energy we needed to do some more uphill pasture walking before coming to a microwave tower (seriously, what are these things?!) and then doing yet another long road walk in the afternoon sun.
The first time we have seen these green signs on our trip!
Amy, along with her kids, picked us up with cold Gatorade and water waiting. She drove us back to her place and introduced us to her husband who welcomed us with open arms. They fed us dinner, let us shower, did our laundry, and even gave us beer and ice cream until we thought we would explode. We talked about some of our past adventures and showed Amy our gear to help her prep for some upcoming hikes. It was an amazing end to a 22-mile day.