Saturday May 20, 2017
Fingerboard Shelter 14.2 miles
Total mileage 365.3
The terrian has changed and I am going have to adjust my mileage. The climbing and descending that I am doing has really started to bother my knees so I think I will go back to low mileage days until things start to feel better. I am trying to get into town on Sunday night because it is supposed to rain all day on Monday so this is going to be my last push of mileage. Then I will just take the rain as it comes. I may even have to hold up in a shelter to stay safe and out of thunderstorms.
I noticed this morning that I was missing my spoon and I remember using it at the ice cream shop yesterday and I think I threw it out by mistake. 😠 I was so tired yesterday evening I couldn’t think straight. Some hikers say that the trail provides. Well…As I was hiking this morning I decided to stop and eat my breakfast at the next road crossing and just add extra water to it and basically drink it. I would just have soupy oatmeal. When I got to the road there was a table and chair with a box of supplies for thru hikers. In the box of supplies was a lone plastic knife! Score! Not only could I eat my breakfast I could sit in a chair at a table.
Today was cooler than the last couple of days, but the bugs were still bad!
I saw a lot of people on the trail today. There was a group of boy scouts that included 24 kids and 12 adults plus all the other hikers and day hikers. When I got to the shelter there was another group of boy scouts plus a group of national guard men with inner-city kids. Luckily it was a very large shelter area with plenty of tenting.
It is hard to get a good visual with the above picture, but I walked through this area. It is called the lemon squeezer. I tried to go through with my pack on but I ended up having to take it off and walk through sideways.
Lady Slippers! I remember learning that these were endangered flowers when I was a kid and that we should never pick them. I wonder if they are still endangered. Seeing them always feels super special.
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I have heard that they only bloom once per year for maybe a week.
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Ice Cream! Those little stops can really ‘drive’ a day and perk things up. 🙂
Happy that the trail provided a knife for you.
Way to deal with the punches, lady.
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You aren’t going to believe this. I’m also following fellow Ohio resident Vulture’s blog. A couple of days ago she found a long handled spork on the trail, exactly what she had been wanting to replace her plastic spoon. She said, as did you, ” the trail provides .” She saw it as payback for a good deed she had just done for another hiker.
And now I’m wondering if it was yours….
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No it was mine. I threw mine out after having some ice cream. Please tell Vulture that I said hello!
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