Miles today: 11.2
Total miles: 1462.4
Our plan today was to hike to Daleville, resupply, then hike a few miles out of town and stealth camp somewhere. Then tomorrow we’d go by Mcafees Knob, the most photographed spot on the AT. Delta and I had talked about wanting to be at Mcafees knob for sunrise or sunset, but to do that we’d have to cut a day really short.
Anyway, the hike into Daleville was easy. Before we did any of our chores in town, we headed to get fast food for lunch… Obviously. As I was walking across the Bojangles parking lot I heard someone yell “are you a SOBO?” to me. I replied yes and discovered the girl and guy that had yelled to me were NOBOs that had finished their hike in September. The girl, Fun Size, asked “want some trail magic?” to which I obviously said yes. She said her and her boyfriend Bottlecap had gotten trail magic at this exact Bojangles on their hike. Bottlecap and Fun Size are from the area and were driving by and hoping to see Southbounders so they could pass the trail magic on. They bought Delta and me meals at bojangles and then sat chatting with us tellig us about all the cool stuff we have to look forward to on the trail. Meeting them was an unexpected great surprise.
After eating, I told Delta I’d thought about it and decided if he still wanted to stop early so we could get to Mcafees knob for sunset tomorrow I’d be fine with it. Originally I didn’t want to do another short day as I felt like we’ve been making slow progress lately. But I reminded myself that ill probably never get to see Mcafees knob again so i should see it at sunset if thats what id prefer. Plus doing a short day isn’t the end of the world. Delta was hapy to hear this and we decided to stay at a motel in town where we later found out 6 other SOBOs were staying! One of the six is a guy named hover job, who I haven’t seen since New Hampshire. He’s planning to throw a SOBO hobo bash AKA a Halloween party at a hostel coming up. I think there are so many sobos staying in town because they’re planning their hiking schedules around trying to get to the party on the right day. While the party sounds awesome, we’d have to basically take two days off hiking to make it so wed get to the hostel on the right day. I didn’t care enough about it to take that much time off and neither did delta, but it was nice to run into so many sobos because of the upcoming party. I met some new hikers I hadn’t seen yet–Slingshot and Sasquatch, two girls hiking together, and Fives, a guy from MN.
I kept pretty busy in town doing errands–walking to the post office, resupplying on food, and getting some warmer clothes at the outfitter. Another reason I was ok taking a short day today was that staying in town meant I’d get to watch the Red Sox! This would be game 2.5 I get to see (the half game beig when I just watched snippets with deltas family). I’d say that’s not bad for being in the woods managing to see that many games. Plus it was nice to just relax for an afternoon. Looking forward to Mcafees knob tomorrow.