Thunder hill campsite --> parking lot (7 miles)
It's Tuesday night. I haven't showered since Sunday morning. I'm sticking to this page. Anyways tonight suked, but we'll get there. Right now Seth if whacking spiders to make us Velveeta with bacon. We're on a grassy part of the parking lot, but again, we'll get there. We woke up and it was pretty cold outside. Seth has let me use his 15 degree bag which means that I'll be comfy even in 15 degree weather (maybe even 5 degrees). I was toasty all night- no socks. Seth on the otherhand, had a 50 degree bag and had on a fleece, socks, and the sleeping bag hood on and was stil cold. I read a chapter of our book and we packed up camp.
We had thoughts of taking it easy today and doing 2.7 miles to our next shelter Thunder Ridge, but it didn't work out that way. On our way to the shelter, we went to a viewpoint of the Blue Ridge Prakway. We just finished reading about the visability being bad becuase of pollution when a teenage couple popped up smoking cigs. We made small talk for a sec and left. We got to the shelter and it was really nice- fire wood chopped up, a grill for the campfire, etc. but only one problem-no water. We were running low and I was cautious not to drink anymore until we found more. Someone has purposely left 3 gallons of water and there was enough for us to boil for our mountainhouse meal, I didn't eat much of it, just salami. We read the register (a notebook with short diary-like entries by other hikers) as we usually did and I wrote in it. Seth didn't like that I wrote "God Bless you" on account of him not being Christian and all and it was so strange because after that we climbed Apple Orchard and I sneezed and a voice said, "God bless you" and then from the blinding sunlight a man with feathers in his hat appeared. I didn't know if he was a hiker, an angel or Yankee Doodle. Either way it was kind of peaceful and surprising. Backtracking on our way up to the waterless shelter, Seth almost ran into a had-to-be poisonous bright orange spider. We ducked underneath trying to do minimal damage to the web and ourselves. On our way up to the orchard, we saw Guillotine Rock- a round rock lodged between two mountains so as to look like the position a guillotine would have been in during the French Revolution. Super cool. As we emerged from the woods to a field on our way to Apple Orchard Mountain, it reminded me again of the "happy place" with bright, orange butterflies fluttering and flirting with one another. It was the highest point of elevation of the whole trip at 4, 224 feet. In the spirit of being on apple orchard mountain, I wanted an apple. Seth tried to knock them down from their high tops but no-go. We climbed down the mountain and had to pick between staying on the A.T. and going on to Cornelius Creek 2 miles or go (supposedly) 2 miles to see the "200 feet cascading" apple orchard "falls." We picked the latter-wrong choice. Now what images does the mind conjure up when you hear the word "waterfall?" Well, we went down and saw this waterfall and it was nothing but a four foot boy taking a whiz on itself, while his friends watched and if you kept walking, his older brother took a small leak as well. Pretty dissapointing. Then, we had the task of ever steeper downhill and the dark for awhile. Here I was in tears in the dark searching desperately for a campsite. My right knee was in such agony (still hurts) and my feet felt like they were bleeding. I was pissed and in pain and couldnt find a site. We, hopeless stumbled upon this dirt/grass parking lot and settled here. I don't think we'll be able to meet Corey where we thought due to tonight's bad choice. Velveeta did make it better though, but then again, it always does.
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