Miles: 1558.1 | A slow morning turns into a family-filled sendoff as grandparents treat us to breakfast—and yes, ice cream counts this time. An impromptu plan brings cousin Chris out for his very first overnight on the Appalachian Trail, complete with borrowed gear, filtered water lessons, and a perfect summer evening in the woods. A quiet fawn encounter, familiar hiker faces at camp, and long overdue cousin conversations make this short mileage day feel especially full.
In the morning we got up around 9am and starting packing. My grandparents had decided to drive up to take us out for breakfast. They took us to Friendly's and the six of us squeezed into a booth. Grammy and Grampy asked us all sorts of questions about trail life.
Once, when I was four years old I asked my Grammy if I could have chocolate ice cream for breakfast. She went to scoop me some in a bowl for breakfast, but before she could my Aunt Marci came down stairs and scolded her. Aunt Marci said kids shouldn't be having ice cream for breakfast. She really was right. Four year old me was very upset, though, and spent the entire morning crying on the bar stool at the high top breakfast counter in Grammy's kitchen. I cried so hard that I fell asleep on that bar stool.
Now at 23 and hiking the trail, I asked my Grammy if I could have ice cream for breakfast. She chuckled and said yes. Chris piped up, "She's getting ice cream for breakfast?! Can I have ice cream for breakfast?!" We all laughed and Grammy got us cousins chocolate Fribbles. I also got a real meal of eggs and toast and hash browns. During breakfast, Chris was telling his mom about how cool he thought the trail was and said he thought maybe someday he might want to do part of it.
Miles and I had only planned to hike out about 7 miles this day to camp, we told my family. I saw that there was a road crossing only a mile from camp that we would be passing the next morning. I asked if Aunt Missi would have time to pick Chris up in the morning and we could take us with him for the night. He could use my foam sleeping pad and sleep in Miles' two person tent. We agreed he would join us. Chris was very excited.
We left breakfast and went back to Aunt Missi's house. I said goodbye to my grandparents who and helped Chris pack his backpack for the overnight. Miles and I finished getting our packs and food ready and then we piled all of our stuff into Chris' car. Aunt Missi drove us back to the parking lot in Lee where she had picked us up and we set out with Chris into the woods.
We kept walking and made our way to camp. When we got there the shelter was full and we said hi to the hikers we knew: Wolf Pack, Willow, and a few of their friends. Miles and I set up our tents behind the shelter and showed Chris the process of setting up camp.
It was fun and the weather was perfect. Chris kept up with us the whole time! After a few miles we came across a fawn right in the middle of the trail. I was leading the group at the time and I almost walked right into it! The fawn stood and stared at us. I yelled at it, I didn't understand why it was so close to me. Deer, even fawns, are powerful animals that shouldn't interact with humans. It looked me in the eye. It didn't seem threatened or like it was going to trample me. It wasn't even scared. Eventually it moved aside and let us go by. It seemed sad. I had never seen a fawn alone that wasn't dead or in some kind of nest that its mother had made. It was clear someone had fed it, the fawn got much too close to us.
Chris was still hyped up from hiking. He wanted to keep hiking but we talked him down a little bit. It was already almost 7pm and we would be hiking into the dark, Chris without a headlamp.
Chris accompanied me to get water. Unfortunately, like many water sources since Pennsylvania, the water was slightly yellow. Chris was surprised. I showed him how to use the Sawyer filter and I told him to just taste the filtered water. It didn't taste bad he remarked and we carried the water back up to camp. The three of us sat and ate our dinner together.
Chris and I hung out in my tent and talked about all sorts of things. We hadn't had one on one time in years. We talked about the future and adulting and jobs. Eventually, we all lay down to relax and Chris fell asleep first out of any of us. Miles and I read for a while.