May 12

Happy Birthday!

We stayed late in the room, but finally headed out to the trail.  Tink had left earlier to get a head start.  There were plans in the works.  Today is Apache's birthday.  Apache and I walked to the post office to take care of some things.  Everyone else hitched back to the trail.  The car that dropped them off, turned around and came to pick me and Apache too!  We all hiked together under Interstate 81.  I found a couple Busch's in the grass just a bit further.  Score!  Gotta love beer magic.  We passed an old cemetery, checked it out briefly.  We stopped for lunch at a campsite that had a privy.  This was an old shelter site, but the shelter had been removed for some reason.  Hiking was really nice today.  We were now in cow country.  We walked through several pastures.  Much of this stretch is on private land, but the landowners have given hikers allowance to pass through.  Amazing rolling fields, full of wildflowers and grasses, cows grazing.  Slims had 2 ticks on him.  We all did a tick check at the next road crossing, haha!  Toward the end of the day, we crossed another road, and came to some coolers of trail magic left by a local church.  We all got a cold soda to power us up the next mountain to the shelter.  We hiked ahead, and we had Apache in the back so he would be the last one into the campsite.  We came over a ridge, and could see a campfire.  Just as we came out of the rhododendron thicket, into the campsite at the Knot Maul Branch shelter, Tink had strung up a "Happy Birthday" banner!  She also had a "Birthday Boy" button for Apache to wear.  Slims had been hiking for the past 2 days with a glass bottle of margarita.  BamBam was up there with us too, and we all had a great night.  We even had a fire-cooked chocolate chip cookie, with candles in it.  Later in the night we started playing a game of hot-potato with embers from the fire.  Not a great idea, but it was fun, and as long as you kept it moving quickly it wouldn't burn you.  Good times.  Apache had an awesome trail birthday!

The AT crosses through farmer's land in SW Virginia.