But, here's the best news of the day. David, Bill and I got to hike together again for one day. If you know me, you know that the three of us hiked together quite a few miles on the recent NCT hike. For example, in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.
And here we are today.
Most of what we hiked today were also ATV trails that looked a lot like this.
The problem was, this looks about the same as the road we were using to spot a car at our planned ending point. This is the road.
Well, we got down it as far as Raccoon Creek Ford (after driving through three other fords), but we still had a mile to go to get to our destination. And it had taken a lot of time to carefully drive this far. Meanwhile Bill was waiting at the campground he had found for us. And we still had to go back and pick him up.
We were already fairly stressed out at this point. And the ford had a problem. We would have had to get on the concrete ribs in just the right place to not bottom out the cars. And the road on the other side didn't look worse, but it didn't look any better either. Um... no thanks. Then we realized the trail went right through that point. Decision! We put the car right there and shortened the day by a mile.
So, now I've massaged the next couple of days to even out the miles. Tomorrow we will start at a point where we have to re-walk one mile, but we decided that's better than driving that last mile again!
It turns out that Sand Gap, Kentucky, has an open gas station, a Dollar General Market (that has actual groceries), and a pizza place. Can you say celebration of our one day together? (Don't ask me why I have my hand against my face?)
But tomorrow morning, we have to say goodbye to Bill. David and I will go on for about 10 days until the companions will change again.
Miles walked in 2016: 479.7
Sheltowee Trace miles hiked: 152.9
Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. S-Tree Tower Rd to Raccoon Creek, 8.6 miles.
 | See Sheltowee Trace- Details |
