June 11. Centennial Trail Day 5.
Last night was a good night. I slept well despite being on a slight slope. A few articles of clothing placed under the downhill side of my sleeping pad and all is well. We leave camp together at 7:15 and Renee, once again, takes off like a rocket. We go through some serious logging operations and even see some equipment being moved. Otherwise the trail is pretty fun, nothing too strenuous up or down. The weather today is a little strange. It started out pretty warm when we left camp, but I can feel a cold wind cooling things down.
TMI?
I don’t really take much rest today, because we have ten miles to Whispering Pines Campground and food calling us. At one point today I squatted to pee and, as girls sometimes do when we squat, a number one turned into a number 2. This is my first cat hole experience on this trail so far! The trailheads here don’t seem to have toilets, but we’ve been in and out of civilization so much that I haven’t needed to dig a hole until now. I clean myself up and move on, and although you might not know it, about a mile down the trail there is a nice outhouse at the Rapid Creek Trailhead. Imagine!
Rapid Creek cold and clear
The zero that was not
At this trailhead I use the toilet, obviously not to go to the bathroom, since that task was done to me before, but to make a phone call. At this point it had become extremely windy and I knew I would be able to hear better once I got out of the wind. There is service here and I take advantage of it to call Whispering Pines to see if they have a cabin to stay in tonight and tomorrow night. We’ve been waiting all along to get a zero here. Unfortunately, since it’s now Thursday night, they only have a cabin for tonight, not tomorrow. Damn. The extra day it took us to get here has robbed us of a night in the cabin. Whispering Pines does not allow hiker cabin reservations in advance for obvious reasons: hikers are notoriously unstable as the trail can throw up all sorts of unforeseen circumstances and throw us off trail. Or slow down, as in our case. Oh well, we’ll figure it out. The trail provides!!
Wildflowers in bloom near Pactola Reservoir
Down with the disco
The trail after this meanders around the Pactola Reservoir, and I see a few hikers and some deer. I stop about a mile before the end of the day to eat the last of the food I have on me. It’s strangely satisfying to eat everything I’ve packed. I stumble upon the famous YouTube disco ball in the woods pointing the way to camp. It’s time to celebrate! With temperatures hovering around 60 degrees today, it’s certainly not disco hell. Finally, I reach the paved road near the Deer Creek trailhead and head downhill toward Whispering Pines. It’s not far, maybe a quarter mile from the trail.
Just a look at the Pactola reservoir
Ooooh, look at this shiny thing I found in the woods!
Whispering Pines
Renee is already there and checked into our cabin. She greets me as I approach and shows me that she already picked up her resupply package. I take off my backpack, take in my surroundings, and head to the main office to retrieve my resupply and take a look around. The office building has a pool table, a hiker box, and a small store with a few things that would be enough to resupply if you didn’t send one here. I’ll have a Gatorade for now, a root beer for later, and a diet Mt. Dew for tomorrow morning. I also get my own resupply box and return to our cabin. The cabin has a large bed and two bunk beds, a small refrigerator and a microwave. The shower and laundry are just down the road. Whispering Pines offers hikers a shower kit with a clean towel, washcloth, and soap. How nice! Backpackers certainly don’t have that kind of thing with us.
I open my resupply box. I had included a small gift for our zero: a bottle of wine and even a bottle opener. Guess we’ll just have to enjoy it now! I open it and we drink it from our camp mugs while we relax. I finally feel the call to cleanse myself. I take my shower kit and trail pajamas to the shower hut and take a nice long shower. The stalls are the size of a pencil, but the water is hot. After the shower, I prepare the clothes. I gather all my and Renee’s dirty things and throw them together in one load. I had packed quarters and detergent sheets with my resupply, but there are laundry pods for sale at the store. (Insert happy sigh here.) Now I can really relax, with another cup of wine…
The food I had my eye on
Three miles from here there is a restaurant I’ve been to before called Sugar Shack and I’m dying to eat one of their burgers. I’ve told Renee about this place and somehow we need to get food there. We’re certainly not going to walk six miles round trip to eat. I talk to the very nice lady running the counter and she offers to take our order, go pick it up and deliver it to our cabin after her shift. What the hell? The people here are so friendly! We both ordered burgers and fries, and as soon as they were delivered, we sat down and devoured them, me with the root beer I had stored in the refrigerator. The Sugar Shack burned down a few years ago, but has since been rebuilt. Their food is still as good as I remember it!
I walked 68 miles for this meal. It’s worth it!
Renee and I went over several different ideas for the rest of the trip. We decided to visit the Centennial Trail Angels Facebook page. I also contact Mash and he gives us the number of a guy who is the de facto angel for the northern half of the trail (Mash does the southern half). We ask him if he has a cabin we can stay in for the next two nights. He quickly answers yes, since he just had a cancellation. Perfect! We make plans to hike to the South Boxelder trailhead tomorrow outside the small town of Nemo, where he will pick us up and take us to his cabin. With plans in motion, we settled in for the night in our adorable little cabin.
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