Mountaineer Falls Shelter

18 miles, 397 total.
Woke up in the barn at 8:00 am to mist, rain, and wind. Nothing new, I guess. My bunkmate, Crawfish, was still fast asleep so I packed up and left. Last night he warned me that one of the upcoming shelters had a permanent resident and I should skip it. good advice. Guess some local was kicked out of his house by his wife and he's taken up living in the shelter that is only about a mile away from a local road.
I had to climb 0ver 1000 feet in my first mile. I crossed to really large balds (little hump and big hump are the official names). Thankfully, I couldn't see anything because of the mist and rain. I would hate to have to see something really cool! It was so bad that I could barely see the trail in front of me. Most of the day was like this until around 2 pm. At about 2:30 pm I stopped to have lunch next to a small quickly flowing stream. It was very serene and comfortable. I packed up after lunch and climbed about .10 of a mile up the trail - which was going up a hill - and I looked back to see further up the stream, which I couldn't see before. The hillside was totally covered with trash! Just as I stopped to wonder what in the heck was going on...a big black chevy silverado drove along the road at the top of the hillside and somebody tossed two large trash bags from the pickup bed and screamed, 'yeeehaaaw'. The bags burst open as they rolled down the hillside, spewing trash all over. A half-inflated basketball bounced down the hillside and into the stream where it floated away to basketball trash heaven. NICE!
As I passed Applehouse shelter (the one near the road) a guy in camo sitting in a rocking chair listening to a radio, inside the shelter, waved and asked if I wanted some soup. I said "thanks but no" and kept walking. He must have been the local resident...with an angry wife.
Anyway, done with my 18 by 4:30. Saw some really nice smallish waterfalls after all the weirdness. Also walked through a bunch of very green fields, by a country cemetary, and through a church yard where they offered hikers free water. Nice day.
Here at the shelter, a brand new one, with two section hikers from Florida. Very nice guys. One is originally from the Bronx; was a school teacher until recently relocating to Fla. They gave me extra food and snacks. cool. Tomorrow I break 400 miles.
Later,
L