Day 33, August 1, 10.3 miles

Woke up to my 5:30 am alarm and got ready for 6:00 am breakfast. Marge and Earl had prepared blueberry pancakes, sausage, eggs, biscuits, potatoes, gravy, real maple syrup and homemade jam. Just what an AT hiker loves. It was all delicious. They asked me if I wanted to WFS and help them at 4:30 in the morning cook breakfast. Ah—no, not really, seeing how it’s only $20/night, I think I’ll just pay and sleep in a bunk an extra hour. What wonderful people they are. So kind and gracious. Marge is 83 and went hiking yesterday. What an inspiration.

Today’s hike was quite pleasant comparatively speaking. Still had a couple mountains to climb and descend, but nothing too drastic and because we were slack packing, it seemed much more easing, but its still pretty slow going. The weather was perfect again until about an hour before the finish. The thunder and rain started, but thankfully no lightening. A couple of other hikers staying at the hostel doing a section 2 days ahead of us said they got thunder, rain and hail today.

We had Pilgrim join us today for the 10.3 mile hike. Joyce, his wife was waiting for him at the road when we finished. He had taken a spill about a mile from the finish and had cut his arm and wrist, but was ok otherwise. It is really unpleasant when one of us old folks falls. The young people fall all the time and seem to just bounce right back up without missing a beat. We old people first check out teeth and then our bones and slowly roll over to attempt to get up.

All-in-all it was good day and another one done.

Tomorrow will be another good breakfast, another slack pack and another stay with Honey and Bear.