Unionville to Waywayanda, small town to small shelter.
No snacks all day due to poor planning on my part.

Somewhere amid the fantasies of food, dominated this time by Swedish fish and a fried cheesecake I once ate at the NC state fair, I recall a boardwalk jaunt through some marshes, a steep trudge up a mountainside dubbed the “stairway to heaven,” a group of sweaty bridesmaids descending said staircase wearing sweat-stained uniforms with “bridal tribe” embroidered on front in elegant, swooping letters, and a boyscout troop. The worst of all boyscout troops.
The troupe of bedraggled and clearly misplaced bridesmaids had carried themselves with infinitely more poise than these budding champions of nature.
I had dreamed of a peaceful end to my day and instead was kept up all night by prepubescent teens arguing loudly about who “got more puss” while trying to open canned foods against the stone supports of our shelter for lack of a Swiss Army knife.
30 scouts and not a one with a utility tool. Closest thing they had to a match was one kid’s big oval glasses. I didn’t want to be around when the bigger kids needed to make a fire. The scoutmasters had faded into the background and I suspected this adolescent civility wouldn’t be far behind. It was Lord of the Flies in the making.
I fell asleep quickly.
You don’t survive as a long-distance hiker without growing accustomed to living in the “lawless wild” as a romantic might say it.
As I say it.

Feeling like Robinson Crusoe besieged by Ralph, Piggy, and the not-so-whimsical Lost Boys –Nomad