Ponies and Paul

We haven’t had service in a week so this post has been a week in the making.

Charlotte has waited 500 miles to see “the ponies”. It was one of the things we used to hype up the trail for her when she was lukewarm about wanting to do this. But, ponies. Ponies were promised. After 500 miles.

We actually saw some ponies the night before we entered Grayson Highlands State Park, the home of the famous wild ponies. We camped near a pasture that had a little pony family grazing in it. We ventured into the pasture and Charlotte got to spend some time near the foal before he wobbled back to be with Mom, all knoby kneed and wobbly. We guess it couldn’t be more than a week or two old.

The next day we hiked into Grayson Highlands. We were on pony lookout from minute one. We saw some in far off fields. We saw some down in a close-by meadow. But the girls wanted the real thing. A pony encounter. After lunch it happened.

Amelia had grabbed some “good grass” from between some rocks and held it in her hands for quite a while. It was very hot and very sunny that afternoon. Amelia’s grass was a hit with the sweet pony that stood right on the trail. She credits her grass success to a combination of good grass and sweaty hands. She marinated that grass in salt for a quarter mile.

The ponies love to lick hikers because they are sweaty and salty. We all got a leg bath from the same pony. The other 2 he was with weren’t interested in us.

After our close encounter of the pony kind Charlotte could not stop talking about it. “I cannot believe I got to touch a pony.” “That pony was just on the trail and there he was. I saw him from far away and he didn’t leave before we got there.” “Remember when the pony licked my leg? I must have been salty.”

It was so fun to walk behind her and hear her excitement as we moved along. You could tell that her little mind was reeling after the encounter.

Unfortunately, the A.T. doesn’t go through much of the state park and, before we knew it, we were out of the park. The girls were sad because I said that I thought we would be there for a few days. Oops. It was still a special section of the trail.

We hiked 17 miles that day to meet Paul. Oh goodness were we excited to see Paul. Someone from home!

Paul Wood is the music director from the church where Matthew serves, Grace Lutheran Church. He has a cool little teardrop trailer and he set up in a campground near the trail. We set up our tents next to the trailer and didn’t have to move them for 3 days!! What a blessing.

I cannot describe how good it was for our souls to see someone from home after almost 2 months. We could laugh and talk and feel like ourselves.

And Paul was the best kind of trail Angel and friend. He slackpacked us for 2 days. He drove us into town… Like 40 times. He sat outside Walmart for over an hour and chatted with the girls while Matthew and I ran around trying to resupply. Then he took us back the next night when we realized what we had forgotten. He listened to stories upon stories about hikers he’s never met, and never will. He drove us to buy new shoes and to do our laundry at a laundromat from the 1800s.

How could we repay him for all he did? We couldn’t… But we did treat him to an underwhelming dinner at Sonic. Sorry, Paul.

I think it was humorous for Paul to watch us strategize and (attempt to) organize ourselves for the days after his departure. So many logistics.

It was hard to see Paul go. We so enjoyed and appreciated his visit.

Oh, in other news, Matthew finally revealed the Trail Name that he got IN GEORGIA from Thor. He’s Shepherd.

And in other OTHER news my trail friend BeeBop gave me a Trail Name. Keeper. The Keeper of all that awaits us on the trail. Miles to camp. Distance to the next water source. Accent and descent remaining in our day. Options for privies (most important information, by far). I’m glad to have been given a name by a friend. It only took 6 weeks.

Keeper, out.