Braemar Castle, Hampton, TN to 1 mi N of Vandeventer Shelter
A good first day of solo hiking for me with a good start covering about 9 miles in 3 hours. This put me at the Shook Branch Picnic Area on Watauga Lake. There I ran into a hungover thru hiker who gave me some good advice. He said that when you are down or things aren't going well out here, the best way to deal with it is to "walk it out". Also conveniently a song title :-)
I feel like things are going well even with Princess not here but it is still a different feeling after spending the last 38 days together 24 hours a day. I will just have to get used to it and move forward on my way north to Maine.
That will be one of the biggest changes for the trip now. Since there is still a good chance that I would be able to complete the trail straight through to Maine without flip flopping moving at a slightly faster pace, I am going to attempt to do just that and work on making the miles to make that happen. There is also incentive to move faster to get back to Princess sooner and maybe get a short break before returning to work.
Some of the highlights of today:
- McDonalds breakfast burritos
- a fawn deer on the trail right in front of me that did everything but rub itself on my leg (which I didn't let it do so its mom would still take care of it)
- some cool trail magic from a couple of campers on the lake. They were just fixing lunch as I walked by today and as I was playing with their dog they asked if I would like some pork chops and eggs for lunch. Of course I would so I hung out there for a while and had a lunch that was way more exciting than my PB&J on a tortilla that I planned.
- completing my longest day yet and camping relatively early on a small bluff overlooking the lake from 1600 feet above.
(I have no witty song lyrics for this one since my rap song lyric knowledge is extremely limited past the late 1990s)
- Snowfox
Sent on the go from my Peek
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