Forest Fisher Adventures: Bad Weather; Catching Up

Forest and I arrived at the hotel last night at 8 p.m. They were very nice and accepted Forest as a service dog should be accepted. By the time I checked in, took everything to my room, fed Forest, and cleaned up, I was too tired to go to the restaurant, so I ended up ordering a pizza in the room. I started charging all of my electronics, washed some clothes, and took advantage of the WiFi to upload some videos to Facebook and provide a few updates for the blog.

The weather report for today and the weekend is pretty bleak: a flash flood watch through tomorrow, a chance of thunderstorms every day, and a 80% to 90% chance of rain every day. My sister and mother-in-law offered to watch my son for the weekend (thanks so much to both of you!), so my wife is driving up tonight. We will go to Bear Garden Hiker Hostel tomorrow to pick up the resupply package that is waiting there and will decide from there where we want to stay tomorrow night. This will give us a chance to talk about the food situation and better plan how to maximize calories (and taste) in the future, while minimizing weight. I also need to figure out how we can carry more water, so that Forest and I are both hydrated properly. Most of the hikers on the Trail are heading to Damascus for Trail Days, so the hotels and hostels outside of that immediate area should have vacancies. I don't think we are going to go, unless I determine that I have a pressing gear issue that the vendors there might be able to fix.

Thomas Knob Shelter: the Ponies in the Campsite
These pictures are a little fuzzy because they are screen captures from a video. This is one of the videos I mentioned previously. I woke up to find a mama pony right in front of our campsite. She was calmly munching grass as her foal nursed. When it was done, the foal started coming right toward our hammocks. A little panicked because I didn't know what Forest would do, or whether the foal or mother would panic and kick or bite, I had to shoo it off. Fortunately, it wandered away. It was unbelievable how calm they were; they are definitely used to being around people. Probably some of those people have broken the park rule and given them food because they certainly seem tame.