Bubbles Day 72 (Tuesday, June 7th, 2016)

We woke up and I was honestly sad to be leaving Maria. I had grown to love this woman in such a short time.  I'll be honest, I love easy and have a big heart, but I truly felt close to this lady.  She reminded me of a grandma that one would always want to be around.  As we sat eating breakfast Maria came out and sat with us.  She told us she didn't want us to leave and we said we didn't want to.  She talked us into taking a zero with her!  I didn't really need to be convinced, I was so excited I could have danced.  We spent the morning with Maria and she let me do her dishes.  She said she normally didn't let hikers do her dishes, but I insisted.  I wanted to do house chores, but Maria said there was nothing to be done . I did hang the sheets on the line outside and then the magic happened.  Maria called her "sweetie" a chipmunk that eats from the palm of her hand.  I was so excited I was squealing like a child.  She let me feed the chipmunk too.  She even tried to pick it up, but said she was still working on that.

Whiskers and the chipmunk

My Maria and her chipmunk

Our friend RockDawg69 showed up at Maria's and we were happy to see him.  We have run into him a few times and he is a nice guy from Georgia who is doing a giant section of the trail.  He needed to get laundry done but Maria wasn't feeling well.  She is taking medication for blood pressure and it is making her dizzy.  She said she didn't feel comfortable driving so I offered to drive thinking she would come along and sit shotgun.  I was wrong.  She handed me the keys and said bye.  She also handed me her bed spreads and asked me to wash them for her.  I was happy to do something for her and would have paid for it, but she wouldn't let me.

When we got back from the laundromat Maria was gone with her grandson. I was thinking, OMG, her grandson is going to think we are taking advantage of his grandmother.  I'm cruising around in her car!!  I was nervous, but when I met Eddie it was all good.  He said one time she let some hikers take her car and they hit a deer.  If I would have heard that story I wouldn't have offered to drive her car!!  Hahahaha, her grandson told us all about the charity work he does.  He works in Mexico building houses and running a children's camp.  He was a great guy and we enjoyed getting to know him.  Tomorrow is going to be hard to leave my Maria. I kept singing Sound of Music's Maria to her and I know that song will be stuck in my head for awhile now.

Smudgy Cheeks Day 59 (Wednesday, May 25th, 2016)

I hiked 5 miles to the next shelter today.  I stopped short of my first goal because my ankle is hurting a little bit.  I want to give it some time to heel.

I got trail magic from the main caretaker of the shelter.  He gave me apples.  Then a maintenance guy who was mowing lawns and talking to a neighbor nearby gave me ice!

 I'm going to stay off of my ankle for the rest of the day.

Hudson River

Flag in memory of a hiker who died in 9/11 attacks

Snake on the trail

Toad on the trail

Chipmunk on the trail

View today

Day:  59

Miles hiked:  5

Total Miles hiked on the trail:  494.2

Bear: 1

Chipmunk: 1
Deer: 1

Snakes: 2
Toads: 2

Vulture: 1

Zoo Animals:   2 foxes, 1 porcupine, 1 bobcat, 1 turtle, 2 bears

The Sprout 19 (Friday, April 15th)

We woke up today at 6:30 and started packing up.  All was good until we made our first stop about two miles up the trail.  While sitting down for a break Smudgy Cheeks and Bubbles got into a fight.  It was intense and Smudgy Cheeks turned around and walked south down the trail.

The perfect place to stop and rest our tired feet

After Smudgy Cheeks left we took it slow because Bubble’s feet were hurting and we are sad that the Three Amigos split up.  We started as a team and wanted to finish as a team.  We knew that there was a chance that one, or even two of us, might get hurt along the trail, and need to end our hike, but we didn’t think it would happen like this.  However, as sad as we are, we knew that we couldn't sit around and be sad all day.  We had to keep going because we are on a mission.  

Bubbles LOVES evergreens!

It's great walking through all of this history!

We hiked up to the Washington Monument.  Unfortunately, the monument was closed because lightning struck it last year and they are renovating it for safety.  As we were talking I heard leaves rustling and saw a huge black snake.  As I was taking video and pictures of the snake it moved extremely fast toward a rock.  Suddenly, a chipmunk took off!!  He got away. The chipmunk won today!  Even though it was awesome seeing the snake, I got chills because I know there are snakes everywhere on the trail.  I decided we are going to be sleeping in our tent with it zipped all the way up from now on!!!

The snake was about five feet long!

Washington Monument built in 1827 atop South Mountain

The rock scrambles are going to be everywhere pretty soon!

View from the Washington Monument

At one point in the day we got a phone call from Johnny (one of Bubble’s brothers) saying he was in the area.  Having Johnny call us, and meet us on the trial, really helped us get back into the groove of things.  It helped us to get out of our funk because we knew that Johnny would help bring our attitude back to where it needed to be!

When Johnny met us in a parking lot he had food for us!  We had some drinks and ate Subway like homeless people!  We ate it so fast he even tried to give us his sub!   We had cookies and chips too.

We got into the car and tried to look for Smudgy Cheeks.  It was a big let down when we found out that he had already left.  

It felt so weird to be in a car!  It’s only been a few weeks but I can’t remember the last time that I went so long without being in a vehicle.  We went to Walmart and resupplied.  We were so happy to get our little bottle of Sriracha and more food.  Johnny wasn’t planning on camping with us so he bought a sleeping bag to cowboy camp in front of the fire, like a champ!

We finally got our Sriracha

While walking from the AT parking lot to the shelter we came to the bridge where Poppa Lip had a bunch of Boy Scouts on a hike.  His Scouts spent a lot of time getting trucks to honk.  It was good because we felt like kids again and we got a lot of cars and trucks to honk!

Poppa Lip's favorite bridge

We were so looking forward to our evening at camp with Johnny.  When we got to camp we set up our tent, started a blazing fire, and spent time catching up.  

Bubbles and Johnny

I love it out here!

Day:  19

Miles hiked:  7.5

Total Miles hiked on the trail:  184.7

Bears:   0

Butterfly:  7

Chipmunk:  2

Crawfish:  1

Deer:  20

Really Big Dog:  1

Mouse:  1

Nest of bugs:  1

Skunk:  1

Snail:  1

Snake: 1

Squirrels:  11

Turkeys:  4

Turtles:  107

Woodpecker:  1

The Sprout: Day 5 (Friday)

Jeff not too far ahead of me

We got an even earlier start today than yesterday.  We were on the trail at 6:00 a.m.  Word on the trail was that it was supposed to rain throughout the night.  We didn't get any rain but it was super windy.  It was pretty dark when we hit the trail and about 45 minutes in it started to thunder and lightning off in the distance.   All I really wanted to do at this point was to get off the mountain and get into the valley before it started storming!  Luckily, the lightning passed but we did have to deal with a little rain.  At least now I know my rain cover works!  At the top of Bald Gap the fog was rolling in the mountains.  It looked like something out of a movie.

Tree down

The White Walkers taught us how to make cowboy coffee so we made a batch when we got to Swift Gap.  Cowboy coffee is just boiling the water and dumping the coffee grounds in and let it sit for about ten minutes off of the fire.  Fortunately, we had service at Swift Gap so we called everyone in the family to let them know we were safe.  

Another great view

There were so many squirrels on the trail today, at least 5 that I counted, one chipmunk, and a huge deer too.  Every morning while we're walking I always hear woodpeckers off in the distance.

Spring is poking through

The nats have been bad lately.  Maybe it's because we smell now haha.

If you look closely we are at the red dot

We did 12 miles today that puts us at 54! A mile from our hut we stopped at this camp store it was the best thing ever. Jeff and I got there before Maggie.  I got a cinnamon roll and a 20oz Coke. Jeff got a Yoohoo and a blueberry muffin and we split a sleeve of Oreos! It hit the spot!

White Walkers Dogs.  Hence why White Walkers has a plural trail name.

They had showers there and we definitely took advantage of that!! $1.00 for five minutes. I washed my clothes the first five and took a shower the second round. I can't even tell you how much we needed a shower, lol!!

Maggie carefully walking the trail

Today was a good day. Since the hut was so close we bought some hot dogs and hot dog sauce. We bought some other things for the rest of the week too.  Ramen, pop tarts, and trail mix. We're all set and ready until our next drop box.  We gave White Walkers a couple of hot dogs too. We all had a good time and he showed us a few natural fire starters.  I think this is his third time on the trail so he knows a few tricks!

Happy Hiker

Day:  5

Miles hiked:  12.4

Miles off trail to shelter:  0

Total Miles hiked on the trail:  54.8

Blisters:  0
Real Bears:   0
Deer:  5

Squirrels: 8
Chipmunk: 1
Snail: 1

We smell!