Day 26

Day 26 (PT 11): 30 miles

It was the best kind of start to the day. It was supposed to thunderstorm all morning. But when I woke up around 6, it was only lightly raining. I refreshed the weather and the forecast totally changed and now there would be nothing! By the time I finished up packing it was done raining. This was a much better start to the day than I had planned which was sleeping in until the storm was over around noon.

This was the first pleasant day of hiking temperature wise in a while. It was cool all day, which was glorious.

About 1/3 of the day was road walking. I liked it cause I was cruising fast closer to the end but I didn’t like the dogs. They were a nuisance. After I double back a little bit cause I took a wrong turn on a road, the wonderful people of the Pinhoti Outdoor Center stopped by in Their car and said hi. They warned that this last part was the final dog gauntlet. And they were not wrong. It seemed like every other house had a gang of angry mutts HOUNDING me.

The final boss was a house with 6-8 dogs. They lined up in the middle of the road when I was still over 200 yards away. As I got closer, a large dog charged forward. They had a battle line formed so I though my usual strategy of yelling at them to stay in their yard wouldn’t work. As he was approaching I bent down to pet him. He still looked angry so I thought it was a 50/50 chance this works or he bites me. Thankfully he fell in line and became my new buddy. My newfound comrade led me through the valley of the shadow of death and barked at all the other dogs that were angrily barking at me as we walked by. Major alpha energy.

I did my final resupply at a dollar general right on trail at the end of the day after crossing a major highway. I got all the essentials, a tub of ice cream for dinner, a pack of chips ahoy and Pringle’s for my final resupply, and a terminus beer.

On a road walk, I also had a dickhead that sped up and swerved off the road towards me which was unusual and uncool. He was probably an Alabama fan and had flashbacks to 2015