June 26th Bivouac

June 26

On the AT it was rocks that gave me grief until I learned to love rocks and became Rockdancer, here on the FLT it is raspberry bushes, foot high, shin high, belt high, shoulder high (and brush waist high). The other thing, today was mud holes, the mud thick and heavy, when I pulled the hiking poles out there was a definite pop, and a couple of times there was question as to whether or not the mud would suck my boot off, I won but it was because my shoe laces were on tight. Today was techniquely the most difficult hike of the trail so far, the trail was not maintained, it was well marked except where there was a multi tree blow down, i.e. dozens of blown down trees, I had to bushwhack, I went to the left, circled the blow downs, could not find the blazes, realized I did not have a compass, knew that I did not what to backtrack what I had just slogged my way through. Went backwards down a path, and cut into the blazes, it, so far, was the only time I had a concern about locate. I have missed the trail turn off twice, where the trail went to the left or right, and I went straight ahead, until I realized that I had not seen any white blazes for a while. Decided to road walk to get to Windy Hill Camp Ground for the night, attempted to hitchhike, very few cars, and they were going 50-60 and yuppie looking. Found a couple in their yard and went over and started talking to them, she had just cut asparagus, told her about the last I had in Wis., I asked about directions, road hills, told her where I was wanting to go. The man also 70 with a very unaligned lower back, asked me if I looked familiar, I must have looked very curious, said I was from Wis, he said he had seen me 3 times the day before. He was in one of the big red dump trucks that were hauling brush away from a lumber cutting. I as for a ride to Windy Hills, he was happy to take me, once there I realized just how long it would have taken me to walk it, so we got there in 15 minutes, where it would have taken me 3 hours to hike the road. I had called the guy at the Windy Hills; he had a spot for me with running water and an electric outlet. Hey, plus indoor toilet and shower. Hey, I had a hot shower, washed my clothes out, and felt clean all over for the first time in 3 days. I met a guy at the camp ground and we talked about my adventure i.e. hike, he has a trail, year round at the camp ground, he said he was a 2 pack a day man and knew he could not hike, his adventure was driving the 4 wheeler around the camp grounds. He said that only half jokingly. He was in his early 50's by my guess.