6/10/00
Day 80
Wood's Hole shelter, GA
976 miles

Still in Georgia.  It's 8:30 PM and it looks like I've got this shelter to myself tonight.  I'm tired enough to go to sleep right now, but the sun hasn't even set yet.  The last 3 days from Hiawassee I've gone 12.5, 13.0, and 14.7 miles.  That makes for a long evening sitting around at this time of year.  I plan, though, to go 19 miles tomorrow over quite a few ups and downs, so I'll probably arrive late and exhausted (like a good thru-hiker should).  But that will put me only about 8 miles away from Springer, so I should have a really relaxed afternoon waiting around for Rick to pick me up, and plenty of time to write a few postcards.

Last night after I finished writing you and had sealed it in an envelope, a fairly large bear visited the shelter and we had to chase it off twice.  It was actually the third bear I'd seen that day, as I'd spotted a mother and cub down below the Trail earlier that day.  Somehow I'd gotten the notion that I didn't have to worry much about bears now that I was out of the Smokies.  But now I'm definitely hanging the food bag for the next couple nights.