I woke up in the morning to find Stranger and Halifax gone. I made some coffee and started packing up my gear, with the intention of continuing North to find Just Clay and Camo. A woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Bigglesby passed my camp, and I asked her if she had seen the guys. She said she thinks she passed their camp about a mile or so back off the side of the trail. She said they looked like they were still trying to get up and moving for the day. I quickly finished packing and headed that way.
I found Just Clay and Camo right off the trail, maybe less than a mile from my camp. They were almost finished packing up, and asked for water. I had about a liter left and gave them some. We weren’t exactly sure at that point how far our next water source was. We heard there was a spigot available for use at a volunteer firehouse up the trail, so we were hoping that was true.
Eventually we made our way to the firehouse and found the spigot. We weren’t real excited about the milk-white looking water, but it was wet and cold, so we took it. We hung out outside the firehouse for a quick snack, then headed up the trail.
Once we got to a point where the trail crossed a road, we decided we were going to hitch down the road about 2.5 miles to a little store that was supposed to have some hiker food. We tried hitching there with no luck. 3 smelly dirty guys with huge backpacks must not look real enticing to pick up I suppose.
What we found there was the “JW Green Merc. Co.”. After walking in, we weren’t really sure if it was a museum or a store. The place looked straight out of an old black and white picture you would see of a store from the 1800’s. The goods they had for sale were minimal, and sporadically spread across shelves and counters. Most of the items were either covered in a thin layer of dust or the package discolored due to sun exposure from the nearby windows.
The purchased items consisted of things such as pop-tarts, Kraft Mac and cheese and some other junk food. Some of the groceries were eaten out in the parking lot, where we took another short break.
We decided to hitch back up to the trailhead, and really hoped to be picked up this time. The road back was uphill and the asphalt road-walking was killing our feet and legs.
Luckily we were picked up fairly quick by a van with some people from Tennessee. I’m not really sure how we even fit in this van, it was so cramped with people and gear. I would include a picture of our van hitch, but I literally could not even reach my phone in my pocket to take a picture.
Back on the trail, we continued segment 2. At this point, we figured it would be best to take a break from the sun in the heat of the day. We found some shade in the parking area and laid down for a little while, staring into the sky. Camo played his guitar for a little while, but otherwise we just laid there silent.
Undercover Dirtbags 