I made a pig of myself at the breakfast bar this morning and although the weather was nicer than predicted I still didn't leave until noon. Then I promptly went next door to McDonalds for lunch.

Given the late start I never expected to do 20 miles. What went according to plan was the hike up Lamm Rd to the end of NC bike route #7. From there I joined #2 and headed west with the sun in my face. None of these roads see much traffic and the walking is easy enough. Before I knew it the time was after 4, then after 5. So I started tapping on doors looking for a place to put up my tent. That is where things went awry. Basically I either skipped the house because of dogs, or a bad yard for tenting, or the people weren't home, or they didn't want me there. By the time I had tried the nineth house it was after dark and I had decided to just hike through the night. Unfortunately the eigth or nineth house had called the police about a suspicious person. 10-15 minutes down the road I got a visit. Now there isn't anything illegal about knocking on someones door and walking away when they don't answer, but someone didn't like it. I don't know what the police were expecting when they found me but it wasn't a thruhiker on the MST. My story is weird enough to be true though and these guys didn't hassle me. In fact they (nor the cop last night) never even asked my name. I was a little tempted when he offered me a ride somewhere, but the problem with that is after a nice comfy night somewhere, it would be really hard to get back to that exact spot to continue the hike. I decided to just keep walking and see what develops. Everything works out on the trail after all.

So where am I writing this? Well I was at an intersection confirming directions in the guidebook when I saw a reference to Dwight Brantley of Daddysville. It said he offers a camping spot to hikers and he is right on the trail about a half mile further. All this according to a 7 year old book. To make a long story short, he had forgotten all about that offer and had no idea what the MST or a thruhiker was. In retrospect it sure is a funny memory. Anyway he was happy to help out anyway he could and later realized that I was doing the bike trail and remembered telling Allen de Hart, the author, about free camping 10 years ago. Just another day on the trail. How was yours?