July 28th, 2021
Mile Marker: 1641.7
Miles Hiked Today: 31.3
This morning we woke up early and I was so excited for my hot chocolate and coffee mix. I had done this for over half of the AT and strayed from it this year for some reason.
But it’s back and it had me starting my morning off right. It’s also been strange for me because on most mornings, I wake up with a random song in my head. Not one that I had listened to the day before but maybe one I had listened to weeks ago and/or never at all. I’ll just wake up and bam, I’m singing some song randomly. This morning I decided to play the music out loud on my phone since it was just us at camp as the one person had already left.
I loved being the only ones at camp so you didn’t have to hush around to make sure you didn’t wake anyone else. I even let out some dance moves and Journey tried to. 😁
We started around 6 am and while walking along a ridge we could hear some kind of commotion coming from down the mountain. Once we stopped we could hear cow bells ringing about but no cows. There must have been a crap ton of them though as the bells played us a unique melody.
We started the morning out pretty slow and talked some with a hiker named Always. He had told us that he sat and talked for a while with Tia and Grady before they got picked up. Then he mentioned Peace Corps to me and how he had served as well.
I’m looking forward to talking to him more about his service!
The trail had us up on ridges again but today the trail seemed to look different. Almost more green and I was loving it.
After about 9 miles we had previously decided that we didn’t want to carry water for 10 miles so we had to go .3 miles off trail to a spring. It was a long way down but opened to a beautiful meadow.
Shortly after hiking back on trail, Journey was behind me and I hear him trip and yell out a howl.
I immediately turned around and noticed he could hardly put his foot down and said he felt like he broke his toe. 😳 My heart sunk. It was like we just couldn’t catch a break and especially him. In the Sierras he had ripped off the front part of his pinky toe and was limping around for a week while it healed.
We continued on at a rather slower pace as well… there really wasn’t anything we could do if this proved to be true. All we could do was continue to hike until we get somewhere where they could look at it.
For lunch we stopped and camped out near this cabin where we kept having a deer friend come around us. The deer here aren’t scared of us at all. I almost thought this one was going to let us pet it.
After lunch, a second round of coffee, and a 10 minute cat nap. We headed back out.
It was hot but not unbearable especially with water sources about every 5 miles.
It was so beautiful today. I just couldn’t get my head off a swivel trying to absorb it all in.
In the afternoon we kept our pace a little bit faster since we knew we were trying to hike 30 miles for the day.
For an early dinner we came to a spring and campsite where bees were in love with us.
When we filled up at the spring the bees were flying around like crazy and one was actually near the back of my knee and when I went to crouch down to get water, ended up stringing me.
As I walked back to the tent spot where we were going to cook dinner, I had one angry bee flying around me and Journey had about 10 near him.
I’m not sure what these bees are so attracted to on us, but they want it and it is terrifying!
Journey also finally took off his sock and shoes and we could see the tip of his toe changing to a dark blue and red and was extremely swollen… crap crap crap. I had felt so bad for him and was crossing my fingers that it wasn’t broken.
We hiked into the evening and made it to camp around 8:30. Since we had already eaten this wasn’t a huge problem. I was so excited because we are near a big creek that we washed off in and I get the pleasure of listening to it all night. 🤗
My eye kids are so heavy! Town meal tomorrow in Seiad City yay!!
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 