Natural Bridge and beyond

We’ve been hiding from the rain.  Mostly from lightening but wet gear is hard to dry out on the move so we high-tailed it to the Natural Bridge KOA on Mother’s day.  One room, ‘log’ construction with no bathroom (though there was a bath house) and I was tickled pink.  I couldn’t wait for the rain to begin…bring on the lightening too!  I wanted this storm to drop as much rain as possible while we were under cover.  It dribbled a little silent dribble until about 8am when rain began to fall in a more determined way.  I stalled as long as I could but we eventually moved out and pedaled three miles to the Natural Bridge Caverns.  We got to see the underside of a fault line and Sam was very excited.  From there we went to the Bridge itself and wow!  I had seen pictures before but this sucker was tall!  Pictures just do not do justice. But, I do think Jefferson was being a little grandiose when he went on about it being “the most sublime of natute’s works” but then I have the advantage of growing up in a world in which the Grand Canyon is a known landmark.  From there we went to the wax museum because Sam had never been and was curious.  I went along because it was dry in there.  I think it will be the only time.

So about 3:30 pm we struck out for Camp Bethel, whom I had found on the internet back at KOA.  I called the 800 number and made the reserves:  a ‘hotel style’ room with access to kitchen. Cool.  About 5:30 or so we arrived, cold and wet to discover that (a) the office closed at 5, and (b) the building our room is an adjunct of (the dining hall) could not be found and , after finally finding the staff residence, (c) we were at the wrong Camp Bethel.  Wait, that’s not exactly the truth…we were at the correct Camp Bethel, the one a few short minutes off our route, it was just not the one I had made reserves with.  How can there be two Camp Bethels you might ask and that is just what I did.  They were gracious enough to let us take up occupancy and resolve it all in the morning.

The next day we suffered some good natured ribbing and took off for Catawba.  We pulled into the 4 Pines Hostel about four o’clock.  There was a sign on the gate that said, "keep closed on account of the deaf dog" in hand painted script.  We were all set to shelter up in the garage with the AT hikers (3) when more arrived, then more, then a quite bombastic dude rolled in and we rolled out…out to the tent.  I hope it doesn’t rain…more.

love a nice even tan on the face...

We didn't tent solely because of Mr. Bombast, although he was  noisy in the way of a toddler who is being ignored but because of the smell.  I blamed it on a slightly underfed dog that was found on the trail but it wasn’t him.  Let me say here that I am aware that my 3 day jersey and I did not smell ‘fresh as a daisy’ but the collective funk was too much for me.  Besides, there were bull frogs outside and tin-ny Pandora played through a smartphone inside.