Becoming Odyssa - Jennifer Pharr Davis [75]
The couple, who were no longer talking to me, cooked their dinner and then took turns feeding one another with their one spoon. (They brought a ten-pound bear canister, but only one spoon?)
The woman spoon-fed her husband right in front of me. For twenty minutes, she used baby talk and choo-chooed and airplaned each bite into the fifty-year-old man’s mouth. Even if I wasn’t doing everything right on the trail, at least I could feed myself!
To make matters worse, after dinner, they didn’t even use their bear canister. They just left their food around the shelter where I was sleeping and camped twenty yards away, directly beside the water source— another hiking faux pas.
The next morning I got off to a very early start to avoid any further run-ins with the couple.
On the trail, I was soon confronted with one of Virginia’s most tumultuous thirteen miles. It was nicknamed “the roller coaster” and involved a constant pattern of inclines and descents. Although I had heard that this section was challenging, my legs and mind were now well accustomed to PUDs—pointless ups and downs—and I traveled through the undulating green tunnel with little difficulty.
When the trail is referred to as a green tunnel, it means that the only view is of tree branches beside and above you. Much of the Appalachian Trail is a green tunnel. Most of the time I enjoyed the tunnel, but today I was a little bored with the limited scenery, and I wanted some excitement.
I had just sat down for a snack when I found it.
I saw a little black bag on the side of the trail. I went over, picked it up, and opened it to see what was inside. Imagine my surprise when I found a beautiful ceramic pipe!
Then consider my astonishment when I dug a little deeper and found the contents that were supposed to go inside the pipe!
Now, my knowledge of narcotics is a little fuzzy, but I was pretty sure I had discovered what the Latins would have called cannabis. I couldn’t recall meeting anyone on the trail who had a terminal illness or who hailed from Amsterdam, but I was sure that there had to be a valid reason for my discovery.
Not wanting to leave my findings to someone who might put it to ill use, I decided to pack it out and figure out what to do with it later. Within five minutes, I regretted my decision. I mean, what was I going to do with it? I wasn’t going to smoke it. My countless Little Debbies were bad enough for my system. Combining that much refined sugar with an illegal substance certainly couldn’t be good for my health.
I didn’t want to carry it. I wasn’t even willing to carry a hairbrush because of the extra weight, and now I had a bag of non-caloric plant by-products in my pack?
Turning it in to the authorities wasn’t an option. How would they know it wasn’t mine? What if I had to do a ton of paperwork? Does this kind of thing go on my record?
No way was I sending it home. My mom would kill me.
The little black bag hung like an albatross around my neck.
At the height of my indecision, a sprightly kid just a little younger than myself bounded down the trail. Panting and out of breath, he politely asked me if I had come across “anything” on the trail.
“What do you mean, ‘anything’?” I asked.
“I dropped a black pouch somewhere,” he said.
“A black pouch, hmmm . . . What was inside?”
I had him cornered, but the look on his face was too much to bear, and I started laughing. I was relieved to return the black bag to its rightful owner, seeing as I had no clue what to do with it.
Pluto, as he introduced himself, graciously thanked me and then bounded back up the trail. Once he disappeared, my amusement once again turned into paranoia. Did this make me a drug trafficker?
When I finally arrived at David Lesser Memorial Shelter, I was greeted by Pluto, as well as several other weekenders and section-hikers.