Day 14 - Rainy Days and Trail Angels, N.O.C.

Trail Angels are real people who appear seemingly by magic when hikers are in need of something. In yesterday's unrelenting downpour, Bill and Kris became true Trail Angels when they opened their beautiful mountainside home to four shivering, soaked, smelly hikers to let us shower, wash and dry our clothes and boots, and sleep in real beds while the rain pounded the roof through the day and night. Bill succeeded in fitting four of us, plus our packs, into his Honda Accord, and he even stopped at Walmart to let us resupply and buy multiple frozen pizzas. And pizza is awesome.

Who are these Angels? Well, Bill is the childhood friend of the husband of our new friend, Stitch, and Kris is his wife.

This is how trail magic works.

Stitch caught up with us two days ago. She just lost her hiking buddy, who unfortunately needed to leave the trail for medical reasons, so we invited her to pitch her tent by ours at the campsite. We sat around a blazing campfire and talked through the evening. Stitch has three grown daughters and a loving husband who works very hard, and she just wanted to pursue her dream of through-hiking the A.T. so here she is, with all her family's love and support. She's really cool.

During the night, it began to rain, and rain was forecast the whole rest of the week. We knew that 15 miles away, there was a place call the Nantahala Outdoor Center (N.O.C.) with bunks, and if we could only get there before they filled up, we could sleep the next night under a roof. So in the morning we packed up quickly and set out in all our rain gear.

By lunchtime, news had traveled up the trail that there was not a single free bunk at the N.O.C. because apparently the trials for the national freestyle kayaking team were being held there this weekend. Which is kinda cool, but also inconvenient. We didn't know what we would do. Then suddenly, we notice Stitch on the phone... Amazingly, Stitch just happens to know someone who lives nearby and is willing to take us in for the night, and it just happens to be a Saturday, so Bill drove out to pick us up and was waiting for us when we arrived!!!

It was truly trail magic. Bill teaches at the local college and Kris teaches fourth grade. We had pizza for dinner, then they made us blueberry chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast. They have a giant weirdly long-haired mastiff named Cooper, who was so cute. It felt like heaven! I could not be more grateful. The only sad part was that Brandon didn't get to come with us, but we met up with him again today.

This morning, Bill drove us back to the N.O.C. and we booked bunks for tonight to wait out the rain for one more day. It was very relaxing watching the kayakers on the river while enjoying barbecue and beer and sweet tea, listening to the rain that we didn't have to hike in.

Sadly, it's Lili's last day. Tomorrow she is being shuttled back to Atlanta, and from there she will fly home to Miami. It's been an epic 2 weeks hiking together, and I will miss her a lot! Mainly, though, I'm just glad she was able to come for this long. It has been a great adventure :-)

Photos: Me and Lili at the summit of Wayah Bald; Lili petting Cooper; the national freestyle kayaking team; Brandon and Rambo devouring burgers at N.O.C.