Mission Out of a Backpack: Day 27-34

Day 27 &28 12-miles 04-26/27

A hotel room in Erwin-tent camping by the river

Today as we were about to leave town I had a thought. Neither one of us have been to church since we started hiking. I got on my phone and found there was a Assembly of God church in town. We called, but no answer. Then I called my home church pastor Bro. Fant. He was away from the phone but I left him a message telling him of our situation, and at that point plugged up my phone to charge. In the mean time he got my message and hooked us up big time. Not only did he find out the local churches pastor and phone number, but he called the pastor personally and told him about Dawn and I! We ended up getting in touch with the pastor, his name was Bro. Crass. This guy was a character! He has been in the ministry basically all his life and had so many awesome stories. Him and his wife took us to dinner and during conversation he asked if I would like to preach the Sunday morning service. OF COURSE! Wow! After it had settled in that I was preaching I realized I had better get to work organizing my message. After all, my pastor Bro. Fant had given the recommendation. That night we tent camped beside the Nolichucky river. Bro. Crass picked us up at 7:45am and took us for breakfast with his wife, she is also a very hospitable and loving person. We talked about life and all the things that go with it. Finally at 11 it was church time. We had some awesome praise and worship, which always helps a minister out. Then it was my turn. I preached on fighting the good fight of faith, and it was awesome! So many people responded and came down for prayer to have faith for their situation. What a great day, it's so cool to see how The Lord is working through Dawn and I on this trip. Afterwords they took us to yet another meal. They drive us back to the trail and we said our goodbyes. Dawn and I decided we would go ahead and hike 12 easy miles to a good camping spot. Today has been the best day yet of our trip!

Day 29 22-miles 04-28-14

Deep gap-Roan mt shelter

The forecast today was supposed to be rain basically all day. It turned out much better. It was sunny until 4 and then it monsoon rained the last two hours of our hike. Not much else explains today except it was long. We wanted to get to this shelter we are at because it's really nice, and we wanted to catch up to our friends Tator, Gumbi, and bikini line. We did make it around 6:00pm. One good thing is that we haven't had wet feet once on our trip for 28 days. The down side is today, being day 29, our feet got wet. At one point after the rain, we still had a mile left, we stopped and squeezed out all the water from our socks. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Dawn and I made jokes all day, and we even made some knew friends today. Life goes good. Hopefully it will be drier tomorrow.

Day 30 16-miles 04-29-14

Roan mt-Mt harbor hiker B&B

Today we saw the most extreme weather thus far on the trip. All night last night I could hear the rain and wind pounding our shelter. At one point it literally started howling the wind was blowing so hard. We got a late start to hiking at 10:00am. Soon after we read in the book that the hostel we wanted to go to gave a free shuttle to town, and in town was an awesome pizza place. I really miss my pizza! That said, we started running the downhill stretches to make up time. We also had two high peaks to traverse. These peaks on a nice day would have been a good climb, but combined with the wind they were a pretty intense experience. I got Dawn to take a video of me spitting, and my spit goes horizontal. It was something to behold. Both of us were very glad to be off that ridge line. The latter part of the day was pretty nice. A couple miles from the end we actually had some sunshine. We kept running the downhills and did make it in time for the shuttle. I opted for a BBQ place instead of pizza. It was awesome! The hostel shuttle even took us to resupply. They had said there bunks were full and we would have to tent, but we convinced them to let us stay on the floor since there was a good chance of thunderstorms. We got showers, washed our clothes, and had a chance to watch Apollo 13. I forgot how good that movie was. Life goes easy.

Day 31 10-miles 04-30-14

Mt Harbor B&B-mountaineer shelter

This morning we had a four-star breakfast. All other breakfast should be rated on a scale where the best possible breakfast is what we had this morning. I ate more food than I could have hoped for. Way better than our usual peanut butter covered pop tarts, oatmeal, and coffee. After that feast we sat around the B&B until 11:00am digesting our food. It was a good thing because it took all I could do to walk away from the table. After that we decided to have a shorter day of just 10-miles. We also passed the 400-mile mark today!! Lately we've really gotten into downloading podcast off of iTunes. I've been listening to a lot of different awesome speakers and preachers. It's a nice change of page from my music, and it's free. Life is good.

Day 32 22-miles 05-01-14

Mountaineer shelter-Pond Flat

It's been an awesome day. The shelter we stayed at last night was the royal palace of shelters. It had three levels, and since Dawn and I were the first to arrive we scored the loft level bunks! Which meant we would have to deal with other people shifting and kicking in their sleep since there was only room for the two of us. One common site of staying at shelters is a phenomenon called the "Shelter Shuffle." It occurs every morning and consist of when a person first begins to walk. Because everyone's feet are so sore it's impossible to walk without some kind of limp or gimp. Thus we've dubbed it the "Shelter Shuffle." It's truly the simple things that make life so awesome. Before we came out here we watched an interview of a guy who has walked the AT some 17 times. He said that "hiking the AT isn't fun." He was right. If all a person had to do out here was walk, there would be a much higher attrition rate. I've been amazed at all the people I meet and get to talk with. I'm not just talking the normal "hey, how's it goin?" Conversation. It's much deeper than that. Out here no one has a mask to hide behind. There are no expensive vehicles, big homes, prestigious jobs, or family names. What you see is what you get. It's refreshing in a way. Besides all that, we did see an awesome waterfall today. Right now I'm at my favorite part of the day. Nestled net to my wife in my sleeping bag. Life is good.

Day 33 26-miles 05-02-14

Pond Flat-Double springs Shelter

Let me paint you a picture. You're walking through the woods and as you come out on a clearing you see a guy with a "Support your local Outlaws" shirt, snake skin boots, and a giant steak knife. He's in the middle of hacking away at what looks to be a tarp, but it's almost dark and you can't really tell. You walk a little closer and he looks up. You don't know of he's looking at you because one eye points left and the other points right. He then offers you food. That is where we found ourselves after 23-miles of hiking. It had a really long day. We hadn't gotten out of camp until 9:15am. At the point of running into that guy, I was more than happy to walk another three miles. We got into the shelter at 9:10pm. When we get into camp Dawn and I have a division of labor to speed up the process of eating and going to bed. I setup the tent get out sleeping stuff, and hang the bear line. She goes to get water and begins to cook. We had intended on just sleeping in the shelter since it had been such a long day, but as I got out our stuff I could hear shelter mice running around everywhere in there. It was like they had a race track! I decided to go ahead and setup the tent. A little more work, but if you had heard all the shelter mice horror stories we have you would of done the same. I would say that today was by far the most eventful day.

Day 34 18-miles 05-03-14

Double Springs-Damascus, Va

We made it to another state! Virginia has over 500-miles of trail in it, so it's going to be a long one. When we got into Damascus I got a new watch that Dawn had ordered for me and I also got some boot gators. I've come to hate sticks and rocks in my shoe more than adjectives could describe. One of our friends named Hungry finished his hike so we took him to dinner. When we got to dinner we met a couple that offered us a place to stay in Damascus way back in Hot springs. What are the chances!! She'd given Dawn her number but we completely forgot. Of course we took her up on it, but not after I ate a whole large pizza. She brought us back to their place, gave us a bed, free laundry, and a shower! This means that we get to hangout at a proper home. Life is good.

Erwin First AG