Day 2

Bear Creek to "middle of the woods" -12 long, brutal miles later. 

Rise and shine campers! Our warm cocoons were almost like superglue--- quite hard to leave!  We had our breakfast with our trail mates...

From left to right: " Yellow Bird" and "Totoro" (Japanese mystical cat creature)

Despite their differences, they get along quite well. Because caring is sharing. 

They're great company. Quiet, obedient, always happy, make us smile, and don't eat much. Actually they don't eat anything at all. They're not real you know. They're made in China and are stuffed with fake fur. But we love them. 

Alright, let's get serious. I mean we have 489 miles to go. So off we go...

We traversed up and down mountains ALL DAY for 8 miles and 6 hours up to 7500 ft elevation. We thought we were hallucinating when we saw the river. It was marvelous! We arrived at La Platte river at 2:45 in the blistering afternoon heat!!!! At the beginning of the bridge to continue on the CT, Pippy spied a trail angel styrofoam cooler of goodies with a note on top. 

Thank you Tom J! You made our day! And happy birthday to you! 

Then came the glorious river moment. 

All we could say was "ahhhhhhhhh"

And then this is what happened next. 

We are forcing a smile with our bonnets on to protect us from the 98 degree intense 7500 ft elevation sun!!!! Why??? Because we were hiking in a burnt area with no trees!!! Oh yeah, we forgot to mention we had to carry 50 pounds of water to survive for the night since we had camp in the middle of nowhere tonight. But....everything is awesome!!! 

Even when we had to shelter ourselves from the sun with our solar umbrellas. You can't buy this adventure! 

Finally made it to camp and this is our view now. 9 hours later... Yup that's right, 9 hours later. And no blisters! 

Goodnight. 12 miles tomorrow. Peace out