Day 4

Sat July 25 12mi This morning started out perfect. There was no rain last night thankfully. I grabbed a quick breakfast and got all my gear bundled. My blisters have all but disappeared and my muscles are feeling pretty good. My left knee however was still hurting pretty bad. I was forced to start using a hiking stick and take the downhills very slow. To ease the pain I wanted to keep my pack as light as possible. I decided to carry only enough water to make it to the next water source. Little did I know that this source wasn't flowing at all. It was little better than pond water. I had no choice because the next source was at least 7.5mi away and I was traveling much slower than normal with the bum knee. After filtering it through a bandanna and giving it a double dose of the UV, it still tasted like swamp. The next 7.5 miles took me 5hours, quite a bit slower than my usual 2.5mph pace. I was forced to keep my left leg straight as if I was in a cast. No pain at all when I did this. Unfortunately, that's impossible while you're hiking up and down mountains with your house on your back. But, I did see a bear cub. I wanted to keep it, but it ran away to quick. I made it to the next shelter in perfect time for a rain shower. I cooked a big bowl of rice, unable to decide if I should be cooking dinner or just grabbing a snack. I had plenty of daylight and needed more miles so I decided to continue on. I had read about "The Captain's House" and was pretty curious. The Captain has a house just across the river from the trail and lets people camp out on his lawn. My knees were killing me and I really wasn't looking forward to climbing the mountain to the next shelter. As I got close, I heard a stereo blasting. I saw about 6 tents pitched and a big group of people huddled around the picnic table. Of course I had to go check it out. The coolest part was taking a zip-line over the river to get there. When I pull up and introduce myself, I find out that this was a family reunion of sorts. The immediately tell me to have a seat and put a beer in my hand. I thought I was in heaven. They loved telling me their lives' stories and I told them all about mine. Before too long, I was shucking corn and getting the grill ready for steaks. I insisted for them not to cook anything for me; I'd be happy with leftovers. Of course they cooked plenty and I stuffed myself on an amazing steak dinner. I spent the rest of the time doing the dishes and offered repeatedly to help out with anything else. Definitely a great night. If only my knee can heal up for tomorrow, I'll be doing pretty good.