Cherry Gap, May 3rd

I don't think that my body digested that pizza very well. It still had the slight scent of pizza after coming out the other end this morning.

I'm getting really seriously tired of the amount of people smoking cigarettes and weed out here. It's everywhere. I've had a few bad asthma reactions from it already. Maybe 90% of the people out here hiking smoke something.

The top layer of nasty skin on my toe became crisp and flakey through the night. I was able to peal it away and there was a wonderful clean, fresh, layer of skin right underneath it. You can also see more of the new nail growing out. It feels super weird to touch it.

My heels are still super itchy and I have no idea why.

Today I'm taking it easy and aiming for 13 miles. I don't want to overdo it and spend so much time in town recovering. It was all uphill today but luckily not as dramatic as some of the major climbs have been in the past.

I came upon some trail magic and got a slice of banana bread, a brownie, and some sweet tea. He was really religious and started asking me questions about the bible because I had asked him what his dogs name was, it was Mosses. That was a can of worms. Next time I won't ask the dogs name.

Halfway through the day the trail came upon a bald called Beauty Spot. It was a rather stale hot day so far but wow was it windy up there and it felt great! The view was also wonderful.

I found a little fairy house in the hollow of a tree

There was a memorial tree decorated with ornaments.

Three miles before the shelter DM caught up with me and we chatted and hiked into the shelter together. The shelter was a 6 person one with mice, we kept seeing them run around the rafters.

The rest of my pizza came out including my last night's dinner of paleo-to-go mountain beef stew. Aparently my body didn't want to digest those carrots because those carrots were like the chocolate chips in chocolate chip cookie dough.

I keep bumping my head on the overhang of the shelter because it's so low. I also tried hanging a bear bag and I broke the branch. It didn't come down but I had to take my stuff down. Then the end of my line got caught. I was trying to work the thing loose without breaking the branch more. It kept cracking but I got it free. Everyone just laughed at me from the shelter. I ended up just hanging my food in the shelter because everyone else was anyways.

Tonight at Chery Gap Shelter I'm at mile 359.8 with 1830 left to go.