Stephanie's Trail Journal

June 27th

Beginning Point: Audie Murphy Monument
Ending Point: John's Spring Shelter
Daily Mileage: 13.7* Miles
Total Miles: 695.3* Miles
Weather: Beautiful sunny day!
*We were supposed to walk another 5 or 6 miles but noticed that the trail crossed Rt. 311 twice; Rt. 311 is the road that takes us to the Homeplace Restaurant. Thus, we decided that eating was way more important than those few miles so we took the shortcut.

We woke up to sunshine this morning - I could get used to this sort of thing. We had decent hiking weather, and a slight change in terrain with some uphill climbs and lots of scrambling/bouldering opportunities too. Dragon's tooth was the view of the day - actually, the view of the week, really. It's been awhile since we had some good vistas. Getting down from Dragon's Tooth is when things got interesting... It was chock full of scrambling and even a few metal stairs bolted to the rock face. Fun when you only have to carry a water bottle, challenging when you have 25 pounds rocking around on your back to throw off your balance. And where do you put the trekking poles on those sorts of climbs? Stephan and Dan were able to snap off a few pictures but I wasn't quick enough.

Stephan was quite entertaining today - he had me laughing so hard I nearly wet myself (twice). We were climbing down a risky rock face and Stephan tried to "off-road" around it. This new direction lead him through two sapling pines that were close together - and our Stephan (actually it was his pack) quickly became lodged between them. Dan tried to answer his M'aidez plea by trying to force the two saplings apart (I was beyond cackling and had moved on to gripping the rock for support during my hysterics) but alas, Stephan could not be freed. In the end, as I wiped the tears from my eyes, Stephan was able to back up. Thus, Dan and I decided that Stephan's trailname should change one final time to "Wide Load". We thought a bumper sticker bearing his new trail name might also be appropriate for his pack.

We had dinner at The Homeplace Restaurant today. We've been looking forward to this for about a week now, and it was delicious. We ate two servings of roast beef, two servings of fried chicken, 2 mashed potatoes, 2 coleslaws, one pinto beans, one green beans, and 2 biscuits apiece. After that, the boys had 2 servings of peach cobbler - I only had one, but ended up helping Stephan finish his second. I could hardly get up from the table. Fortunately on the property was a gazebo in the sun that called our names, so we waddled over there and stretched out on the benches. We were there for awhile when another hiker, Dr. Bob, walked up. We met him the other day at Rice Field Shelter. Turns out that he grew up in the same town as Stephan and he was headed back that way next week for his 40th highschool reunion. Small world!

We made some phone calls and then walked to John's spring shelter. On the way there Stephan almost scared the poo out of a miniature poodle. He claimed the dog barked first and appeared menacing. I'll grant that the dog was running free from his owners and they were a little too far back, but this was a cute puppy dog! And I didn't hear the dog bark until Stephan shouted "hey!" at it. And I don't blame him for barking, either. The owners quickly appeared and grabbed the leash; all seemed right with the world again. But then Stephan nearly turned his ankle while passing the dog and the dog visibly jumped away in fear that this huge, menacing guy with nasty sticks might land on him. The poodle owners then picked up the dog while Dan and I passed to calm the dog down. But Dan and I started giggling. And the giggles grew to guffaws which gave way to cackles... "Stephan's afraid of the puppy!"

Butterfingers
Stephanie