Magic, Rain, and the power of Croc's!

Whew, rough day on this last little trek.  It's been about 5 days on the trail now since we were in town and a few "special" things occured. A normal day for us goes like this, which the first 40 miles of this section were like - a list of what our normal day is like: wake up, pack everything back into our bags, put the tents away, have first breakfast, walk a bit, lots of elevation change up and down, second breakfast 5 miles in, up and down, lunch around 2, up and down, scenery doesn't really change, stare at an 18 inch path and avoid rocks, remember to look up to take in the views, then stop at a shelter around 6 pm that has been full with people since 3 pm, find a spot to pitch the tents, boil water on a small alcohol stove, eat noodles, mac n cheese, or some rice side dish, chit chat with the other hikers for 30 min, go to bed, wake up and repeat.  
This section though some good/tough memories were made. 
We were walking down this particularly scenic part of the trail following a stream with the occasional water fall, really enjoying the walk.  See some cars down by a road with people meandering about, wondered what the group was up to.  Got down to the road and began to walk by the group and said a friendly "hello, how are you?" in which one of the men responded
"you guys thru hikers?"
"we are"
"I know it's only nine a.m. and a bit early but you want a beer?"
look at my brother and smile, "why we would love a beer." he continues to open his trunk and hands us both a cold one.
then he said "we've come here to do a little trail magic"
It was awesome.  two thru hikers and one section hiker friend along with two wives came up to North Carolina for a trail reunion and set up a wonderful trail magic for some hikers.  Tons of food: candy bars, snacks, these absolutely delicious croissant chicken salad sandwiches, beers, and sodas.  Of course Turbo and I stopped for an hour or two and kind of gorged ourselves on the amazing food.  Great conversations with MoonDoggy and his wife Kelly.  Felt so rejuventated and connected to these people after our hour long visit with them. 
We somehow managed to pull ourselves away from the magic to continue the hike and moved on.  All we talked about for the next few miles though was how cool the people were and great the food was.  Then it started raining. 

Twas a cold rain. We threw on our ponchos and pushed our way up and down the hills. After a few hours we hit a shelter and decided to stop there after only a 10 mile walk.  The shelter was full of course so we pitched our tent during a lull in the rain, unpacked and joined the people at the shelter for conversation while we ate our dinners.  It rained all night and we woke up to the rain in our tents, we tried to wait to see if it would stop, but around 10 a.m. we gave up waiting we got up and packed our tents away wet.  It was our first day on the trail leaving during a rain storm.  The day started out not to bad, just a steady drizzle and we were staying pretty dry.  The weather just got worse from there though.  As the day continued the drizzle turned heavier, the wind picked up, and the temperature dropped.  The highlight of the misery was walking across Max Patch bald.  A bald, for those of you who do not know, is a mountain top covered in grass with no trees to block the view or, unfortunately for us, the wind.  Instead of a nice 360 degree view and a chance to lay in soft grass we were bombarded with 20 mph wind laced with 40 degree rain blowing horiztonally into our ponchos.  We were hoping for a 15 mile day but Max Patch wiped the energy right out of us.  It was a struggle to walk and each of us slipped in the mud once, our bodies were so numb it didn't really hurt to hit the ground but getting even more wet when it was that cold was not good. 

We ended up at shelter finally, which of course was full, but Turbo's ingenuity pulled through once again.  We ended up staying under the shelter in about a 3 foot crawl space.  There were 6 of us down there and it really felt like an adventure.  The weather was terrible, cold rain that turned into hail, but we were under cover cracking jokes and getting warm in our 20 degree sleeping bags.  We even got offered two beers in town by one of the appreciative guys that we told about our secret shelter under the shelter.  (He just bumped into me while I'm typing this, having that beer later tonight.)  

The next day was kind of epic.  Turbo woke up early and started a fire with ice covered sticks.  Lots of bonus points accrued there.  The whole shelter slowly woke up and thawed their frozen boots by the fire.  My "water-proof" boots were soaking wet after thawing out and Turbo's toe shoes were the same, so that day we left the shelter and hiked in croc's (the slipper shoes), walked 18 miles in the snow and ice in them, and finally made it into hot springs last night for a hot shower and clean sheets.
Taking our 6th zero day today.  We're about to go do a work for stay project that the hostel owner allows.  We'll work in the garden, clean some windows, or wash some clothes in exchange for a night in a bed.  I'll also be picking our my class schedule for William and Mary today.  So much to do on the zero day. 

Hope the long post was interesting enough to read.
-Tabb