First off, before I begin the story of our amazing quest, I want to share with you a funny little story that happened tonight:
Dave and I were out walking the pups this evening; as usual, I had a little doggy mess to clean up and lucky for me, I had a grocery bag in hand to clean up the mess and continue on our journey. As we walked down the sidewalks, Dave looks over and noticed that I was carrying the bag in hand, he suggested that I throw the bag in one of the trashcans outside so I wouldn't have to continue to carry this ALL the way back to the house. I freaked a little and asked if it was legal, he said sure. I look around, and no one was outside, I mean NO ONE. As my bag flies in mid-air towards the trashcan, guess what happens- the owner of this trashcan comes outside! Embarrassingly, I refuse to look at this man, I mean what do you do when you're caught throwing your dog poo into another person's trashcan? Maybe most would look over and give a sheepish grin of apologetics, but what do I do? I RAN. I ran far far away and didn't look back until the man was back in the house. Oh. My. Word. That was an embarrassing adventure.
So since that is out of my system, let me give you the fun details of our crazy time on the Pinhoti...
I guess the best place to start the story of this quest is T minus 2 hours until our departure: at this point, we are all meeting at the house-- doing our last bit of prep and packing [well, except Ean, he actually came ready] & having competitions to see who's bag weighed the less-- I'm pretty sure Kara & I won coming in at 20lbs with Jake, Ean, and Dave on our tails at 30lbs, and Caleb finishing off with a bag weighing a grand total of 40lbs [He packed the generator and the blowing dryer {I kid, I kid}-- but pretty much anything we forget, we assumed he remembered]. We begin our long drive to Alambama around 9 o'clock and arrived in Alabama around 7 in the morning. At this point, we are drained-- lacking lots of sleep and the discomfort the van provided.
The first day was rough. We ended up having to hike roughly thirteen miles to get to our shelter. Our first 3 miles were absolutely miserable-- there were a lot of inclines as well as huge rocks that we had to climb up and over to venture our way on up the trail.
Nonetheless, the sights were awesome and made it all worthwhile!
This was a rad plane we came across
These are my fierce dogs
Two hours into the hike, Jake fell and sprained his ankle really bad. At that point, we had to chose but to continue our hiking and poor Jake fell another 2 times and had to watch miserably as his ankle kept swelling and bruising.
This doesn't do it even justice: {When we got home, Jake found out he had stretched some of the tendons along with severely spraining it- I give him hardcore props}
By the last leg of it all, we were thoroughly exhausted and so ready to be done. We got to our shelter and Caleb was out in a matter of seconds.
We rolled out our sleeping pads and sleeping bags, ate dinner [we made pear quesadillas- they were awesome!], and were sleeping by 6PM {When I say sleeping, I mean passed out}.
For all you Backpackers: This is an awesome idea, simply bring fresh pears, mozzarella cheese sticks, and mini quesadilla shells-- we sliced up the pears with Dave's pocket knife, pulled the cheese apart, folded over the shells and put the pears and cheese inside. Then we brown the shell on both sides, until the cheese was melted-- DeLISH!
Day Two was a beautiful day-- we woke up and took an easy morning finally deciding on a day hike so Jake could take it easy on his ankle. He stayed back to "wrap his ankle" and rest which also stands for SLEEP. Day two was fun because the weather was so nice out and as we ventured down into the valley it got a lot warmer and the particular route we took was gorgeous. We even came across a rad abandoned van out in the middle of nowhere- of course we had to stop for pictures!
When we got back-- we prepared dinner then settled in for reading time with Jake, while Ean decided sleep was a much better option.
Day Three brought a lot of rain. It was kind of miserable the first half because it was too nasty out to hike, plus there was lightning literally striking right beside our shelter. We sat around reading the Log book that had been left in the shelter for passing travelers to sign so we read that out loud to each other and pondered over the many questions the book asked [unfortunately for appropriate issues, these cannot be shared on here]. Finally around the afternoon, the weather started letting up and Dave announced that he thought we would be okay to go out hiking. I won't lie, I was kind of freaked about this whole idea because it had been raining HARD and it was super muddy out plus it was rumored that near the end of the hike, in order to get to the next shelter, we would have to cross a river. To me, this was not a good idea AT ALL. Nonetheless, boredom overtakes sensibility and we ventured off. It was a crazy good time in the end; all the simple streams had turned into torrent falls and the river we crossed ended up being about chest deep [in comparison to me and my shortness, this means I pretty much just had to swim across].
It all ended up being beautiful in the end, and we had a FANTASTIC view from our shelter we were staying at.
By the last day, we were all anxious to get a start. We ate quickly and started out on our last 10 mile stretch. The beginning of this hike was absolutely beautiful, we passed by four different falls that joined together into one river-- it was breathetaking! After this, I wasn't quite so excited, we had another river to cross along with a few other waterways to wade through.
About halfway through the day, I was feeling the exhaustion. I hadn't had my VIA for the day [not having coffee is never a good thing for me] plus I was hungry and cold from crossing the river. I was mumbling on and on to myself something about showering, warm clothes, and pizza-- I think this is what kept me going. Just as I was feeling like the hike would never end, we came across a father and son starting off on a hike who told us we had about a mile to go before we were done, but we were going to have to wade through another river. I was both appalled and thrilled at the same time- I was excited to get to the van, but I was also down and out because we were going to have to wade deep in yet again through another waterway! However, lucky for me, these guys had no clue what they were in for! The crazy wading we were about to face came barely to our ankles. Thank goodness. Finally, we made it to the end and as a treat we got to shower at a truck stop [normally this would fit in my "gross" section, but when you haven't showered in 5 days, this sounds glorious! Best $6 I ever spent!] and we got the BEST PIZZA EVER at
Mellow Mushroom. Don't believe me? TRY IT next time you see one, you will not regret it! {Plus the hippy factor is just awesome}
Overall, this trip was AMAZING-- I can't wait to see what is in store next!
Thanks guys for an excellent time; I wouldn't want to accomplish this feat with anyone else :)
