Appalachian Trail Thru Hike - Day 65 - Another Beautiful Day

Good morning. Oh, good morning. Welcome to day 65. All right, you guys ready? We'll see you down the trail. Bye. Starting out with a bit of a climb this morning. Nothing like a little bit of elevation for breakfast and then we'll get up to the ridge and walk the ridge for a while before we have a I think a couple mile descent and if I can remember from last year it's a pretty gentle descent so looking forward to that. For now we're looking like we may have rain on and off today but nothing severe and tomorrow the next day look like very clear days. So that was a steep climb. I would say that was close to two miles straight up. Well, I mean we weren't like boulder crawling or anything but I mean I had to put it in four-wheel drive at one point. I also came to tell you guys something but I can't remember what it was. I don't know what you're talking about. Well, I don't know. Anyways, it's a nice cool day. What's the temperature? 68. Wow, it's 68 but it feels a lot cooler than that. I would have guessed 60 but there's a nice wind and it's drizzly because it's been raining all night and all morning but this is going to be a good day and it's overcast you can see. So no sun. We'll see if the sun decides to come out and play later on as we start going over some of these fields. It actually would be quite nice to go with an overcast day because this temperature is pretty cozy. All right, let's keep walking. This is what it looks like for the past half mile or so. Not the most comfortable things to walk on but really today it's about being more careful after the rain because all the rocks are slick. Look how beautiful these are. They look like hydrangeas. They have the same leaf pattern, of course the same flowers, same woody stems but I feel like somebody told me last year those were not hydrangeas. That's my favorite flower. I just can't remember. They're beautiful nonetheless. Bye, Blaze! Oh, I remember what I was going to tell you guys. Update on my leg. So yesterday we did the 22 mile slack pack and that was in a large effort to try to get some good miles in but not put all the weight on my leg as it continues to heal. So today it actually feels okay. I woke up with less swelling than I went to sleep with last night so I think that's a positive. And yesterday the pain only got up to I would say a three out of ten and that was at the end of the day. That was like the last probably two or three miles. Trying to watch my step every step because these rocks are so slick. I've already slipped three times. I've got myself but and that was being really careful and I'm not even going that fast. But anyways, yeah. Today I would say I have mild discomfort. I wouldn't even put it on the pain scale. So I think things are looking good. I still don't know what's wrong but it's healing. Bear just reminded me of where this is. Story. Do you remember? Prince. This is where we had to hunker down for that severe storm and the tree fell down next to Story's tent right over there. Oh definitely different today. I'm gonna go check out the view too. Does it look a little different? Does it look different than last year? No big storm coming? That was, that was scary. There we are. Oh it's cold. So well I wanted to share with you guys a story. Story time with Mama Bear. Grab a cup of coffee, go get a refill, grab your tea, whatever it is you're drinking and come share with me. Story time with Mama Bear. So just kidding. Actually I really did want to share something with you guys that I've kind of been debating whether or not I was going to share it because it is deeply personal and I know some of you don't share my face and I love you anyways. That's that's okay but so you may not relate to the story that I'm going to share with you but I know that many of my prayer warriors out there and sisters and brothers in Christ really do understand or will understand the story I'm about to share with you this morning. So anyways every morning I get up early and that is my private time, quiet time with God and I always start out by just listening and waiting for a word from Him, waiting to hear Him and then eventually I end up just talking to Him and you know sharing with Him whatever thoughts and feelings that I might have and prayer requests for our family, myself, friends, you know just a normal conversation. It's a very easy conversation that I have with Him every day. Well this morning um let me back up a bit. As you guys know I think it's been about a week ago Bear and I mentioned how we were feeling about our mission and the fact that we have we've achieved our mission. We are well over the goal that we set with Samaritan's Purse and we are so thrilled that we've had the opportunity to hike for healing and raise awareness as well as generously stimulating the devastated town's economy as much as we possibly could between the two of us. And we were kind of just sort of starting to feel, even though we're still following the white blazes, kind of starting to feel like we were aimlessly wandering. Meaning like because we we feel that we completed our mission it's like what what do we do now? And a lot a lot of people are focusing mostly on Katahdin and finishing the AT but as I've said more times than I can count now that's never been the goal. But we did think both of us thought that it was going to take about six months to raise seven thousand dollars. I estimated it would you know about a thousand dollars or more per month for six months and we'd have our goal. So when we reached our goal so quickly we still wanted to walk through southern Appalachia and all the areas that were so affected by healing. And so going through there it felt great. It was wonderful to talk to so many people. Of course you guys only saw I think three or four of the locals that we talked to but we talked to so many more that we were not going to put on video because that's not what it's about. And so we really felt that we were able to be a sounding board for them to share their stories and to be heard and then just to be able to experience life after Helene for so many people. And so as we started walking through all those areas and then have gotten past them we shared that we were feeling like we're just sort of aimlessly wandering and that we were considering maybe just going halfway and then calling it done because our mission has been complete for a while. But as with all things we said we were also going to pray about it because we were led back here to do this mission. It was not our plans. Certainly wasn't super excited about redoing all that we did last year. I'm not gonna lie. Right? Like you're like wait we have to start over again. Right. Well and the words we heard from God were begin again. Begin again. Right. So we started again. Yeah. So we have been praying and for the past week or so I haven't really heard anything. And so we kind of just have been walking and not really thinking about it. Just walk in and doing our thing. Well this morning I'm really really excited to tell you guys that I have very much received the message that any Christian makes me emotional that that any Christian wants to hear from God. And that was Well Done Faithful Servant. Sorry hold on. I can't help it because. Nope. Okay. I'll be okay. I know. So that's what I heard this morning was Well Done Faithful Servant and the joy in my heart. The peace that washed over me was one that I've only experienced a few times in my life. And I won't go too much into it more because it is very personal between me and God and between there and God. But I just feel like it was his reward to say I know you didn't want to come out here again. I know you didn't want to do this again. I know you didn't want to leave your family again. But you chose to be obedient to me. And I want you to know that your mission is So that's kind of where we are. Basically we can go home whenever we want now. How do you feel about that? I'm I'm happy that we completed the mission. Me too. Because like that's so exciting that you know God's proud of me. And I always knew that. But you know you just need to enjoy this sometimes. But yeah I'm excited that the mission is done. I'm ready to go home because well I miss my home. I was sleeping in tents that way other people don't have to. But I miss my home and I'm ready to go back. And I'm definitely excited. Yeah so we haven't decided exactly when we'll head home. Maybe halfway. I don't know. We just really haven't decided. We're just kind of walking at this point feeling very just content and just very happy that we've completed our mission. And so we wanted to let you guys know because we didn't want what happened last year for everybody to be shocked that oh all of a sudden we're happy Monday and then we're going home Tuesday kind of thing. Yeah. So you guys have some insight into how we're feeling. And you know we could decide to keep walking. Maybe. Maybe not. What do you think about that though? If we did decide to keep walking are you keep walking? Just keep walking until until I don't know. Until we get bored. I'm fine with it. I'm fine with stopping. I'm fine with keep on going. I don't know. I'm kind of just so indifferent about everything right now. So if we keep on walking I'm fine with it. If we stop I'm fine with it. Yeah I mean I kind of feel the same way too. And I know you know a lot of you are probably going to say just keep walking. We want to see you guys go further. And we thank you for that. That is that is really really wonderful to have so many of you supporting us. But I don't know. We we had a fire behind us up until recently because we were on a mission. But yeah I think our purpose is kind of waning. And then you said earlier you're like well why are we still walking if our mission is complete right? Because that's true. That's a good point. You know what are you walking for? Because certainly this will always pale in comparison to being at home with our family. So yeah we'll keep you guys posted. We'll keep you guys updated and let you know how we feel and what we're doing. So you won't be surprised if you know in the next couple days we're like oh here's our new plans and we've decided this. Yeah I'm gonna see the title and be like what? So don't be surprised. But yeah. We want everyone to know that we're so thankful for your kindness, generosity, love, support, prayers, and for walking this mission with us. Because together we have made a big difference. So for now we're gonna keep on walking. Yeah. And we'll see you guys down the trail. Bye. Great water source. I love it when they're right off the trail. No point something to walk down to a blue blaze. It's flowing great. It's a good spot for lunch. We are about nine miles in. Trying to figure out how to get up here. Too much water from all the rain last night. Yeah. Whoa this bridge moves way more than I think it's supposed to. It's hot. This climb is long. Look at this beautiful pop of color. We're on both sides of the trail. I think we are about, I don't know, maybe point something. Point two? Point three? From Laurel Creek? Laurel Valley? Laurel something. Shelter. Made it to camp. Here's Bear doing her magic. Setting up our tent. You do such a good job. I'm it bomb-proof every night on trail. I'm excited to sleep in our tent. Yeah, me too. Bed was nice but our tent was better. Yeah, I do love our tent. Okay, so we made it to the shelter probably less than an hour ago and we're coming back on the ATV to get some water. And yeah, getting some water for dinner and then we need some more to filter into our bottles. So it's going really well. It flows all the way down. Might be from Laurel Creek but I'm not sure. Success. Water. Hey everyone. Hi. Welcome to the closure of day 65. Yeah. Today we walked from Virginia 635 mile, what is it? 659.3? Hang on. 659.4 to Laurel Creek shelter at 675.5. Yeah. I think that's what I said. Anyways, it's 16.1 miles today. So how was your day? Pretty good. Started off pretty good. A little cold but it was fine. Yeah. Today was a hard day. We had some uppity ups like hot like steep long ups and then it got up to about 80 degrees today the one time that I looked and I was just sweating buckets but the terrain itself was was pretty rough too. So yeah, that was a lot of up. I feel like we were walking on thick gravel today. Yeah. It's fun. Yeah. It wasn't too, it was pretty bad but it's definitely been worse before. Yeah but it was a tough day and then we were on the ridgeline. I kind of got excited to be on the ridgeline so I'm like oh semi-flat that's kind of cool. It wasn't. And super rocky. Yeah. I think we just said some of our character builders. Yeah. Well what were some of your highlights today? Probably where we're camping right now. Pretty very flat. Our lunch break and waking up in a bed. Yeah, we took like an hour lunch break today. That was nice right next to the water source. That was very cool. Even talked to daddy. That was really nice. Let's see that was my highlight was our lunch break and hiking a bit with TripAdvisor and Thunderfella. Really enjoy hiking around them. Let's see. I guess my highlight would be that when I actually did fall on the rocks on the ridgeline. Oh that was another character builder. Those rocks were so slippery like that was absolutely insane. Yeah like to the point where I mean it was for like four miles that I was like if you didn't have to walk this section when it's wet, don't. But I mean we couldn't just wait for hours until the sun to dry it out. But I slipped five times and actually fell on the sixth. Yeah not fun. And she hit her funny bone pretty hard. I saw the pain and it was like and like her elbow started bleeding a little bit. Yeah those rocks made me bleed my own blood. No. So yeah overall it was a tough day but I mean it's just a day on the AT really. So let's see. We wanted to update you guys on the conversation we had earlier about us trying to decide whether or not we want to continue because our mission is complete. Yeah. We're at seventeen thousand and twenty six dollars. That's amazing. That's the second goal that we had. The first goal was seven thousand and then you upped it to seventeen thousand and I thought you were crazy. Yeah I didn't think we were gonna reach it but we did. Me neither. And so you know as Bear had said earlier um well our whole point to be out here on the AT was not to through hike, was not to have the smiles and the adventure, was to what? Raise money and awareness for Appalachia. Yeah. And since we did that we have we can go home wherever we want to now so. Yeah so I think kind of focusing keeping our focus on the goal and remembering that that was the whole reason why we're out here. Yeah. We both have just decided that you know we may be ready to head home and I know a lot of you will be very very disappointed because a lot of you really enjoy sharing our journey and we really enjoy sharing it with you but um that just wasn't the goal right? I mean never was the goal but we genuinely thought we were gonna have to hike for six months to raise seven thousand dollars and we were willing to do it. Yeah. But turns out. We didn't need to. Yeah we didn't need to. So um the plan for tomorrow is to hike 14 or 15 miles from here to Virginia 621. Yeah. Um it was already in the plans to stay at um the new. Huckleberry's hostel. Yeah the new hostel called Huckleberry's. We hiked with him last year him and his dog Wyatt and um I reached out to him or we talked you know before we even started back on the trail and we were happy to support his hostel. Yeah. Brand new hostel just opened this year and so we are gonna do that. We're gonna keep our word and um go support his hostel. It's another mission that we have. It was supporting hostels along the way and the economies. So we're gonna do that tomorrow and then um then we'll decide what we're gonna do from there. I mean we're kind of leaning going home so no one's. Don't be surprised. Yeah no one's super surprised or shocked but um kind of leaning going home because we feel we feel pretty proud huh? Definitely yeah. I am tired so I'm gonna end it here. Ellie cameo. Good night everybody. Good night. Love and light to you all. We'll see you tomorrow on day 66. Bye!