Day 21: Farm Hiking

14 June 2016

Start: Boiling Springs Backpacker Campsite
Destination: US 850
Trail Miles: 17.1
Total Trail Miles: 143.8

Today we hiked 17.1 miles! It was a beautiful day. The type of day people write songs about. The first 14 miles was flat, and wove in and out of farmland and forest all day. 

 

 

 

We walked by wheat, corn, barley, strawberry and many other crops. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy owns and operates a couple farms in support of the AT which we got to walk through as well as get fresh water from their spigot. Nice!

Driftwood and I hiked together almost all day today, something we don't typically get to do. We talked about how we both need to work on accepting help from strangers as well as being assertive enough to tell someone no. It's an interesting dynamic for me on both accounts. Takes me smack out of my comfort zone, but heck, I'm getting a lot of practice! 

 

As lunch time approached...a sacred and highly talked about event on the trail...we both decided to find a nice place with a view to eat. Almost immediately we came across this:

 

 

A small family cemetery right along the trail! We conducted some quick research and found it was the Chambers Farm Cemetary. The earliest we could see was buried there in 1804. Pretty remarkable! 

After the farmland and rolling hills we had a couple steep climbs. I felt every minute of my 38 years during this climbs! But it felt great and we did it! Below are some more pictures. We are camped by the train tracks. There are four of us here. The train is mind shakingly loud. I kept hearing warnings about it from other hikers but shrugged them off because I grew up pretty close to the tracks and enjoyed the sound of trains. Well, it's a frightening thing to hear awake...like you're sitting on the front of the engine as it roars through town blowing its horn several times...I can't wait to be asleep when the next one comes through!

I'm so tired I'm falling asleep as I write. I'm finding it difficult to be entertaining in the least in my blog postings when I'm this tired. Sorry folks! 

Punky Shire checking out!  See a few more pics from the day below. 

 

 

 

Happy Trails.