Another day on The Trace. At this point I was ready to hoof it out of the park as quickly as possible to get myself back into society again. I realized that it’s nice to get away from everything in a park like that if you’re living a normal social life. When you’ve already distanced yourself from society by passing from town to town daily, it’s nice to at least continue passing from town to town rather than retreat to a recreational park.
I made good time to the North Welcome Station and stayed there for a good while drinking sodas and talking to the occasional curious person. I also called my sister who had just gotten the picture I’d sent for her birthday and she loved it. We also plotted where I’d be and when so that maybe toward the end of August or beginning of September she could join me for a bit before she leaves to go abroad.
Leaving the Welcome Station I crossed the canal and wandered into the little town of Grand Rivers. I spent a good deal of time mailing off Ryan’s shirt from Dickson, which had gotten mixed in with my laundry, a zoom lens back home, my completed map of Tennessee to Ingrid, and a few other letters. From there I went to dinner at the Iron Kettle.
Over dinner I got to talking to the waitress, who got me talking to the general manager, who was in to the idea of my journey. It was a buffet style place so I ate one full plate of salad veggies and some fried chicken, another plate of fried chicken, beans, corn, and that sort of thing, then a third plate loaded with scrumptious desserts. When I went to pay, the general manager, Anita, had comped my entire meal.
Across the street I picked up some groceries then sat in front of the Iron Kettle again to pack it all in. As I did people loaded in some supplies to the restaurant and one of them got to talking to me after a bit. He turned out to be the owner. Anita soon joined us with her husband Dan and all of a sudden I felt like a regular in town.
Dan asked many questions about what I was carrying, if I’d tried this or that, and all sorts of things. Eventually the owner went inside and Anita sat observingly on her side of the swinging bench. Dan also told me of a nice place to camp on a TVA beach on the Kentucky Lake right near by. I had been thinking about putting more miles in, but the site sounded so good I went for it.
It was not more than half a mile to the beach and I had the whole lake to look at. I set up my tent then dove in and swam around a bit. Anita and Dan drove by and I invited them to stop by again for a fire later in the night if they liked. After all of that I retired to my tent to read for a bit.
Dan showed up as the sun began to set with a bag of supplies for me. I was beginning to realize I had a Kentucky Don Cox again. He had brought me a new camel pack bag, which I needed badly, some prepackaged camper meals, cookie packs, a hiker’s magazine, all sorts of things. I took a few things then we started up a fire and chatted into the night. After he left I sat by the fire a little longer and wrote then went to bed.