Day 52 | Appalachian Trail Thru Hike 2024 | Taking shelter

Good morning. It's day 52. They say every journey begins with a single step, but I believe ours began over two years ago when we decided to attempt a through hike of the Appalachian Trail. Through years of preparation and training, we prepared ourselves for an adventure of a lifetime. This is our journey to Katahdin. Right now we're scrambling to get up and out of camp. Just looking at the weather, we have a severe thunderstorm coming in in just a few hours, and it's supposed to last all day today and all day tonight. And there's some severe warnings. There's a flood warning. So we found a campground that will pick us up at Tennessee 91 road crossing, so we're just trying to quickly get up and get out of here and get there. Again, another unpredictable day, but we got to get off the mountain. Beautiful foggy morning. A lot floaming around us. All I can think about is ticks as our legs and socks brush up against the grass. I'm so thankful we treated our clothing and our shoes and our bags. Well, this is not the way we typically like to start a morning. I woke up about 3.30 last night to severe thunderstorm warnings, flood warnings, for pretty much all day today, tonight, and I think even potentially tomorrow. So last night it did rain a bit. It downpoured for like, I don't know, maybe 5 minutes, 10 minutes at a time, but not substantial. Enough to where my rain fly is heavy this morning. But, I don't know, we're both just feeling a little frustrated. This is not how we planned for the day to go, but as you guys know, adaptability, flexibility, being able to roll with the punches, is the name of the game. Dang! You know, the wind was kicking up last night and it was starting to rain a little bit harder. I'm not going to lie you guys, being in the tent with the trees swaying, you know the ground is saturated, there's blowdowns everywhere in the section. Of course, many of you guys have commented, you know, you hope we're looking for deadfalls before we set up our tent. Yes, of course we are. That's like Camp 101. We always look for that first, and then if the site is flat enough. But always look for deadfalls first. Look up. But even though we did, and there was no deadfalls around us anywhere close, it's still scary. And this is a part of the trail that I don't like. I don't like being so vulnerable and knowing that we could be in potential harm's way. So, yeah, I was up at 3.30 with the wind and the rain this morning. Couldn't go back to sleep really. Mostly because I was looking at far out, trying to figure out how the heck to get off this mountain and who we could call and where we could go, knowing that probably everybody else on this mountain is doing the same thing. So I did find a campground with cabins. So that's where we're headed. It's about nine miles out. I feel so bad I called them at 7 o'clock this morning, which I would never usually call someone or a business that early. Even though I'm always awake very early. I know most of the world doesn't start business until about 8. Or at least here. But the person was very kind, very nice. Agreed that it was very smart to get off trail. Look at this grass. Definitely doing tick checks when we get to the cabin or when we get out of this. They were very nice and said they had one cabin left for today. Oh, man. Thank God. My shoes are soaked. I know. My shoes are soaked, too. It's like we're going through a car wash for our shoes and all the way up to our knees. But, yeah, so that's where we're going. That was very, very nice. Very understanding. And, again, it was like, yes, you should not be on trail today. Or definitely not tonight. So we're going to get nine miles in, which is super disheartening. Because we're about 30 miles or less, a little bit maybe, from Damascus. We already have our place booked there. And we're really excited to get there sooner than later. We were going to put in about 15 miles today. And then another probably 13, 15 tomorrow. And then whatever balance we had, if there was a balance, Friday morning. To Nero and to Damascus. But I don't know what we're doing now. It doesn't matter. The goal right now is to get to Tennessee 91 road crossing, get picked up, and get into safety. We'll see you guys down the trail. Also, I should note that I'm sure you guys can tell by now, especially if you've been following for a little while, I'm concerned. Well, Little Bear knows that we need to move for the purpose. And that there could be some storms coming. Don't use scare tactics. But I am honest. And so, Little Bear, when you watch this later, because you can't hear me right now. You're far up enough to where you can't hear me. Mommy always tells you the truth. But to protect your innocence a little, I don't know. You know, I tell you just what you need to know. Sometimes, especially when it comes to things that are kind of concerning to me. So, she knows that we need to move for the purpose. And we are. But, just another day on the adventure. Feels like the calm before the storm. Hi. Well, we're a little bit out of the woods, and it kind of opens up into a view. But as you guys can see, you can't see much. Hearing some rumbling in the distance here and there. But, so far, so good. It's hard to tell without cloud cover with all the fog. This is pretty neat. It's so thick through there. So, Little Bear, how many blowdowns have you counted so far in the... I think we've done about four miles. Twenty. That's crazy, isn't it? I don't know if it's just more dead trees in this area. It looks like it's being maintained because there's... Other than the overgrown grass for two miles. But, it looks like it's being maintained. We've seen a lot of cut trees that have been moved off the trail. Definitely would not be the place to stay. There's so many blowdowns constantly in a thunderstorm. Well, hello. We met one of our subscribers. The one that's been following us. What's your name? My name's G-Money. Nice to meet you, G-Money. I'm from Virginia, so once I finish, I might be able to do some trail magic up in Virginia for you. Awesome, that would be great. I live near Shenandoah. Okay, perfect. Alright, yeah, we're excited. We're about, what, 20 miles from the Virginia line right now, I think? No, you're... Once you get to the road, you've still got probably another 20 to go. Yeah, so 24. Yeah. Yeah, close enough. We're counting down. We're excited. So, we're all trying to beat this thunderstorm. I know that's coming. I don't want to hold you all up. I just want to say hi and good luck. Thank you so much and be safe. You too. Take care, ladies. Bye. Just passing by this monument. It said on Far Out it is the Nick Greinsteff Monument. I'm not sure who he is, but Nick, may he rest in peace, looks like he passed just a few years ago. It's a beautiful place. Yeah. Nice little view. Can you see anything? Really, huh? I think so. Stop there. I can sort of see the mountains way back there, but that's okay. It's still a nice little spot. Oh, look at you. A little recliner. I mean, just for you. Perfect size. You're doing so good. I'm so proud of you. I know this is not the way we normally roll. Like, you were going about, or we were going about 3.67 miles up. All the ups today. Yeah, so thunderstorms really do motivate us, right? But I'm very proud of you because I know that's not a great way to wake up. I woke you up extra early today, and you're just a trooper. I'm so proud of you because I think the average kid, shoot, the average adult probably, would be frustrated and not in a good mood and stomping down trail because nobody likes to basically run nine aisles. Or at least walk very, very fast. Oh yeah, I hear it. But I'm proud of you. You're showing so much strength and character and resiliency and just toughness. You dig deep, and I'm proud of you. I'm digging deep right now. Nice squat. All right, let's knock out these last few miles and catch the ride into shelter. Well, the rain has started, but the good news is we haven't heard thunder in about five minutes. So, that's awesome. We have about, I'd say, 1.1 left to go. And we should be safely in a cabin for the real craziness that's on its way. All right, we made it to the road. Yeah, good job. Boy, that was a hustle. Now I'm going to go to my shelter to buy one of the caramels I've been saving. Oh yeah, and a Slim Jim. Yeah, and a Slim Jim. So, we have a shuttle driver on the way from the campground that we're staying at. And I just forgot what the campground is called. Hold on, let me look. All right, it's called Switchback Creek Campground. So thankful that we got the very last cabin because we're hearing even more rumbling of the storm and lightning. It's kind of nice to listen to, but it's a little bit scary. It's kind of a lot scary, I'm not going to lie. And then I keep getting all the alerts on my phone about how close the lightning is. Yeah, that's even more scary. We're just looking at this map. It's kind of a mess, but... Here's where we are. We don't have that much left. No. That's all of this. Yeah. We're basically done. On a positive note, there's where we are. And all the way down there, which you can't see because it's cracked and broken, is where we've already come. Yeah, we've been this much of this much. Yeah, I'm proud of us. All right, let's wait for our shuttle driver and get down the way. Yep. All right, Wendy just dropped us off. Oh my goodness, this is a cute little cabin. Oh lord, thank you for this refuge. It is supposed to get so nasty tonight. Oh yes, one of my favorite books and movies. If y'all haven't read it, definitely, definitely do it. It's an amazing book. And the movie's pretty good, too. It stays pretty close to the book. All right. Thank you, God. I am so grateful. We are safe. That's so beautiful. Sometimes I feel like God gives you those just little special messages to know that you're exactly where you're supposed to be. Well, here we are at another unexpected place that we have never even heard of before and had no idea we were going to end up here today. So, right, we did about nine miles today, which is far less than we had planned today. Originally, we were going to try, well, not we were going to try, we were going to hit 15 today. So that we had even less to do tomorrow and then Nero into Damascus on Friday. That didn't work out. Oh no. Yeah, so, but we're over it because we have just decided a couple hours ago, really, that we're right where we're supposed to be. And we know that God has placed us in the exact location all the time where we're supposed to be. And we couldn't be more happy to have gotten off trail when we did. Yeah. We barely made it, though, right? Yeah, we got there about 11. Yeah. 11.50. We did nine miles, so that's the fastest yet. Yeah, we really, really went quick. And it's not the way we want to travel, right? Because we only stopped a few times for the bathroom. And we were booking it up and down the mountain. And really, you know, there were some things that we would have liked to explore a little bit more. But we were on a mission today, and that was mission safety. Yeah. And sure enough, right as we got down to the trailhead and picked up by Wendy, the sky opened up. And the lightning and the thunder started and lasted for hours. It was a little bit scary, not gonna lie. Yeah, it was. It was just like a little nerve-wracking. But we got here, so we're all good now. Yeah, and there's more coming. So we just showed you the— Hi. I love your trail name. Hi, thank you. Sweet. Yeah. So yeah, there's more coming is what we're trying to say. So that it would not have been fun to walk through that severe thunderstorm. But there's another even bigger one coming. We're actually under a thunderstorm watch. Oh, hang on a second. Sorry. So yeah, we would not want to have hiked in that, of course. So we're lucky that we did not have to hike about four solid hours in a severe thunderstorm. Oh, we're under a thunderstorm watch warning. I can't remember which one it is now. Flash warning. And a flood warning as well until tomorrow at about 8 a.m. So tonight is probably going to be even the worst of it, I think. And so we're glad to be here. We're in safety. And yeah, this is just us rolling with it again. The people that are next door are actually people that were also hiking. And they got off trail as well, which most people were rushing to get off trail today. Tomorrow, we toyed back and forth with what to do. Because there's rain and thunderstorms all day in the forecast tomorrow. But the severe warnings have been lifted. Or at least they haven't been extended until tomorrow. Which is good because you don't want to hike with thunderstorms. Yeah, so I think we're still going to hike in the rain tomorrow, of course. But as you guys have seen, we don't really mind that too much. We can deal with it. It's fine. But we really just don't want to not hike tomorrow. We're trying to get to Virginia. And we're trying to continue with the momentum that we're building. And sometimes when these things happen, you kind of just feel like the wind was taking out of your sails. We think we've made the smart choice that we're going to go ahead and hike out tomorrow. And probably do 12, 13, I don't know, maybe 14 miles depending on what the terrain looks like. And of course what the weather really looks like as well. And that'll be about it. What was your highlight for today? Just replaying the entire day. This shower was amazing. Top tier. I smell like strawberries now. Yeah, this place is really, really wonderful. You can just look around behind us and see. It is such a beautiful property. Oh, you can see that it's coming in now. Sorry, I stepped on the grass. It's such a beautiful property. A very, very nice shower. Really nice little cabins. There's only two. And then you can camp and put your tent up here as well. It's just a wonderful place. And Wendy is such a kind, kind person. He's been so wonderful. And he offers the free shuttles from the two gaps that are not too far from here. That was your highlight. My highlight was when Wendy said, yes, we have availability for you. We have one cabin left and I'll come and get you. And I was like, oh, thank you, God. So I knew we were going to be safe. I knew we were going to be just fine. That was my highlight. What was your challenge builder? Maybe it's because I couldn't breathe most of the trail. Because we were going like 3.6 miles per hour. We were so fast. I'm fine now. Like I finally caught my breath, but it took me a while. You know, it's funny because you couldn't tell. I mean, you were just doing your thing. You put your head down and you kept going and you stayed in good spirits. I'm so proud of you. You just knew what we had to do and you just decided to do it. No complaints. And we got it done. Yeah. We got it done pretty fast as well. Let's see. What is my character builder? I think waking up last night, which technically is today. It was 3.30 this morning. And being like, oh, my gosh, you're kidding me. Not just thunderstorms. We knew there was thunderstorms and rain for the next 10 days when we left Boots Off. But severe weather. Blood warnings. Severe thunderstorm warnings. And I'm like, you're kidding me. And so, yeah. It's fine. It's fine because we're just choosing to roll with it. And, yeah, that's it. Character builder for a minute. No big deal. Yeah. All right. Well, we are going to go ahead and close out the video because, as you can see, the clouds are building up behind us. Magic trick. That's cute. We're going to call family and enjoy some of the time that we have with them. I'm going to edit some videos. I also have a couple of clients that have texted me, actually today as well, and asked if they can have sessions. So I'm going to get that done as well. Yeah. We're turning this day making lemonade out of lemons. Yeah. Love and light to you all. I love you, family. We're going to call you in just a few minutes. Bye. We have another beautiful rainbow.