Monday, May 5
Brown Gap
I wake up to the pitter patter of rain on the hammock. Dang.
I get up and start packing. No movement comes from the
two tents.
I voice my opinion that it's not going to stop raining, and the
other two start packing up.
It rains. Rain, rain, rain. I arrive at the gap where the
shelter is supposed to be. There's a path. I follow
it. There are footprints on it.. there must be a shelter,
right?
Eventually the footsteps peter out and I'm in the middle
of some very nice evergreens. No shelter. I go back
to the trail and notice the real path to the shelter, 20
yards down the trail. Oops. Once at the real shelter,
I strip and put on warm clothes for the lunch break.
After lunch we put our cold wet clothes back on and
keep walking. We considered staying at the shelter
but it was early and we wanted to go a bit further.
The campsite we aimed at turned out to be notso hotso,
but we set up anyway. Nothing else in the vicinity
seemed better.
Getting down to the campsite involves a steep slope
no matter how you do it. We wipe out. I do some damage
to the seat of my Provent pants, sliding butt first.
I set up my hammock on a slope, leaving the tiny valley
floor to Leapfrog and 10-kid (Nancy's new trailname.)
It's been raining quite a while and it's still dry, so it might
be okay.
During the night they find that it's not okay. The waters
begin to rise. The Nomads turn into small waterbeds.
Leapfrog feels unwell during the night. I don't feel
so hot myself. But at least I'm pretty dry.
10-kid shouts over the rain that if a car comes, she's
getting a ride. Sometime during the night, a car does
come. She shouts over the rain. I can barely hear her.
Not wanting to get out of my hammock, I say "Do you
really want to leave that badly?" Silence. "If you
feel the same way in the morning, we'll find a way out"
I tell her. The car has moved on anyway.
Lightning crashes. It rains really really hard. I
put in my earplugs to sleep.
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