#158 Alec Kennedy Shelter to Darlington Shelter - Day 83: ATMM1120.1 - ATMM1138.3
With Rabbit’s strange words fresh in my mind....and an arsenal of cutting tools displayed on the wall, my defenses go up. I can see the newspaper headlines now - Easter Massacre at Darlington Shelter
April 9, 2023 - Easter Sunday
…..but did you die?
No. The cold night fought the good fight but I ultimately won the battle.
Faze emerges from her tent in the distance.
Still shaking off the cold, my fingers struggle to light a fuel tab to warm water for oatmeal and coffee. It’s only four miles to town so I settle on a spoon full of peanut butter to hold me over.
At the picnic table Faze and I decide to hike together into town in hopes of Café’ 101 being open.
Being Easter morning, it’s good to have company and a real breakfast waiting in Boiling Springs PA.
In the middle of a farmer’s field, we run into an old hiker who says he’s hiking the trail but has gotten himself turned around when leaving town. He intended to walk north but is headed south. He goes by the name Rabbit.
His sleeping bag hangs from a rope that crosses his chest and continues around the opposite shoulder. He’s carrying a large heavy duty canvas grocery sack with his other possessions in one hand and a large wooden stick in the other hand.
He’s not a hiker in the sense that most people think of hikers, but a homeless man who hikes the trail to get from town to town, possibly having items cached along the trail.
Faze and I pick up bad vibes from this dude. His whole demeaner warn us to not trust him.
In Boiling Springs we walk through the historic looking town, the kind of mountain town people dream of retiring in.
Inside Café 101, in true backpacker fashion, we grab the only table we see near an electrical outlet. We need to charge our phones.
Also in true backpacker fashion, we each order a large Easter breakfast.
We stop at the gas station down the street to see if they have any trail food. While in the parking lot putting our food in our bags, a local man asks if we want something to drink. We accept the offer, expecting water or a soft drink, but he pulls two bottles of Coors from a cooler and put them in our hands. We stuff them into our packs with the other stuff.
The local outfitter is closed. I didn’t really expect it to be open on Easter Sunday, but hoped maybe someone would be inside by chance, that maybe they forgot their coat of something yesterday and came in to grab it. Things sometimes work out like that.
Through the window we can see perfectly good sleeping pads, pads that I’ll never own. Pads that will never help this hiker through a cold night. All I need is a simple foam pad. Nothing fancy. Oh, there’s one right over there.
2022 Sprawl, after a few nights of struggling on the deflating pad himself, warned 2023 Sprawl not to take the patched Nemo Pad, to instead take his Therm-a-rest foam sleeping pad on this hike, that though nearly a year of sleeping on a soft bed has made him soft, the thin pad will become comfortable after a few days on the trail.
We should always listen to our past voices, they know things that we don’t.