Waiting for bike parts to arrive, I'd already left today as a hiking day rather than a travel day. I won't have enough time to fix the bike and still get to the ferry in Nova Scotia before my resevation on Wednesday, the 11th. I'm ok with the change in plans. I had a great hike along the Appalachian Trail today. I met a number of thru hikers, folks headed from Maine to Georgia. Wouldn't that be great to have on your bucket list! I hiked about 5 miles. There was plenty of up and down terrain. Not much like Florida. Little critters were plentiful. And quite a number of insects. In order to make a looped trip, I hiked a mile or so along Skyline Drive. That's a very scenic drive along the Shenandoah ridgeline. There many bikers, and I stopped to talk to 3 Harley riders on there Sunday ride from Elkton. We agreed that one another's home turf made a great vacation spot, and agreed though the grass appears greener on the other side, we liked vacaioning to the other side, and living where we did. I returned to my campsite for a cool drink and a little nap. I have my mandolin and picked a few easy tunes, to keep my chops up. And then assembled my laundry for a trip to the camp store, not expecting my first ever bear encounter. The laundry and baths were closed for cleaning and I had 40 minutes to kill. Chatting with the campstore attendant, I learned of her bear encounter opening the store several mornings ago. She said it was just a yearling, but that it was only a.few feet away when each startled the other. He ran off and she was left with her heart ppunding. That's exactly how I felt when after showering, sitting at the picnic table behind the campstore, I heard a rustling in the bushes. I looked up and saw a nice, large, presumably hungry black bear standing with his front paws against a tree about 20 feet from me. He quickly hopped about 10 feet up the tree and gained a much better view of me and my groceries. He made a rather loud, and slightly agressive sounding, hrrrumph, noise. We exchanged glances briefly, and he climbed back down the tree and left. I went inside to tell the campstore lady about the encounter and found I was rather speechless. I did manage, 'Big bear'and she followed me back out to see. He was gone. Afterward, there was a strong desire to see him again. It's very exciting. My thought is that since I had opened the jar of peanut butter, and though closed again, it was in my bag on the table, the bear jad gotten a whiff and come.to.check things out. Very exciting for me.
There's quite a large thunderstorm moving slowly over the park. I'm stuck in my tent waiting for it to pass. My groceries a locked in the plastic motorcycle luggage, and definitely not in my tent with me. When the storm passes I will male dinner. I'm starved! And then I'll pick up my bike parts tomorrow. This is a great life!
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