Long Neck Lair mile 545.9 to Lynn Camp Creek (2,373 feet) mile 561.5 for a 15.6 mile day! We ascended 3,730 feet and descended 3,660 feet!

We had boiled eggs and bananas for breakfast, with too many cups of coffee for me. After this, we got on the road to head back to the AT. On the road, because we had to walk .4 miles on the highway to get back to the trail, which also took about .3 miles of road walk before leaving the pavement.

Not far into the hike today we hit a milestone! We have now walked 1/4 of the way to Maine!!

If I have not said it already, the Rhododendron and Mountain Laurel are really blooming now and showing off their wears!

Other than the flowers, the day mostly consisted of open fields and meadows with cattle grazing in some and others just grass blowing in the wind. The sun was bright and hot in those meadows though. I can see why the cows always try to crowd under trees in the shade!

We hiked another 3 miles or so after the fields and stopped along a creek bank to rest and drink some water. We didn’t drink the water from this creek though because of all of the cattle near by, no amount of filtering can take some of that stuff out of that water! I decided to figure a way to prop my feet up for some rest! I think it worked well, other hikers were watching to see if I could keep my feet up there long enough for it to benefit, and I was!

We finally decided that it was time to move on, we needed to hike 16 miles today so we could make it to Interstate 77 where we would meet up with Suzanna and James, Kelly’s husband. It wasn’t long before we had to cross another fence line, and what an interesting way to cross a fence they have out here.

We were slowed down, though, when a group of our hiker friends got off and we saw them standing at a truck getting trail magic! We stopped in and grabbed a drink and I got a hand full of pistachios. We finally made it to our campsite, the latest yet, 7:30. At camp, the first thing that we do is setup our tent, if we don’t do that first, we will be too tired to do it after all of our other “camp chores”. After tent setup, if I have enough water, I start dinner, if not, I go grab water, filter it and then start dinner. After that it’s brush teeth then go hang my Ursack with all of my food in it. An Ursack is a Kevlar fiber bag that has a rope in it, and with a double overhand knot followed by a figure 8 onto a tree, you’re good to go for the night. I then climb in my tent, write in my journal and then go to sleep. I’m usually asleep by 9:15-9:30.

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