I got to sleep in. The day was off to a good start. I honestly couldn’t have stayed in the tent any longer if I had wanted because it was starting to heat up from the sun. Warthog was of course up and out by 7a. He went up to the grocery store for breakfast and came back smelling like fried food. As a gift, he brought me some chocolate milk from local cows.
It was threatening rain, so we broke down our tent and woke our friend Kirby up to do the same. Of course, then the rain never came and poor Kirby had to get up for no reason. At least we were packed and ready to go for when Wonder Woman’s mom arrives.
We spent the day at Trent’s. We had lunch, ice cream, and other goodies from the store. I got to catch up on editing and journal entries. Snow Monkey had more jam sessions with Sam, the local. Our group played cards and charades. Wonder Woman’s mom arrived while we were in the middle of charades. We were excited to see her and get into town.
As we were waiting, someone realized to ask what kind of car Wonder Woman’s mom drives. A Toyota Corolla. A reminder, our group has seven hikers. I’m embarrassed to write this, but we successfully got seven hikers, seven backpacks, resupply boxes, “Wonder Mom”, her luggage, pans of food she made for us, and the dog… all in a Corolla. I’m not even going to try to explain how. It was a jigsaw, that’s for sure. I’d like to write that our drive to town was only a few minutes, but it was really about an hour and fifteen. Originally I wasn’t going to share all of this in my journal. I want to assure family and friends that we are making good decisions. However, it’s so ridiculous what we fit in there that I feel like I have to. Even more, it’s entirely “hiker” to cram as many as you can in whatever has four wheels – so rare is our opportunity for transportation.
We arrived at our hotel in Abingdon around 7p. Just as we were entering the room, we got a call with some unexpected hard news back home. We’ve only been gone for two months and it seems like painful things keep on hitting our loved ones. It’s difficult to be away. We are usually right in the middle of it all, making sure everyone is okay.
-ansel