Day #24-Double vortex well spent; Miles hiked: 10.1

When I woke up at Wildcat Mtn shelter this morning, I had plans to hike 19.6 miles. That obviously didn’t happen, but I can’t complain!

First off, I ran back into Killjoy, one of the other single girls hiking in my bubble right now. We had a grand time filtering water out of a puddle until we got to the first road where the locals had cached some jugs-New York is dry, but the locals rock!Eventually lunch rolled around and 7 other hikers shows up and started talking about going into town. Running low on food, I couldn’t resist the temptation and illegally hitched with three others to Walmart (you can get ticketed in NY, so we waved instead of sticking out thumbs). Once at Walmart, we got plenty of stares pushing packs around.After the resupply, what hikers call the vortex kicked in (insatiable desire to stay in one place, especially when that place has chargers and running water) at Wendy’s.

When I did finally get dropped off at the trail, I planned to hike 5 more miles but only accomplished .5 before I met Half Slow again, my favorite Vietnamese friend. The second vortex quickly kicked in and I spent the rest of the evening doctoring his blisters and learning more about his story.I’m camped in the parking lot next to his RV with big miles to walk tomorrow, but it was a day well spent!