St. Paddy’s Day Hiker Reunion

Upon waking up, all of us hikers discussed how we heard a loud bang in the middle of the night. Beans apologized and said his water bottle accidentally fell from the top of the shelter. I pondered, “That sounded much louder than a water bottle falling. It sounded like a human fell off the top story of the shelter.” Checkmate goes, “Oh yeah, that was me. I fell off.” I BUSTED out laughing uncontrollably and teased, “I’m surprised there was complete silence after you fell that hard. I thought it would be followed by a loud “FUCK!” He goes, “I was trying to be a gentlemen since everyone was sleeping.”

Pink started his early morning wake and bake routine. He threw his weed pen to Beans who was on the other side of the shelter. He took a couple hits, threw it back and it accidentally landed directly into Pink’s coffee cup which caused it to spill all over his things, including his down sleeping bag. Naturally, I busted out laughing. Pink quickly tried to get everything dry while Beans started to feel really bad for what he apparently “did”, which made me laugh even harder because no one ever truly “did” anything. Everything that we perceived was only a dream and anytime something appeared to happen in this world, it was important to follow it by “it happened in a dream”. Why feel bad when it was all meaningless—simultaneously, it was all perfect and beneficial for the healing of the shared mind. And the highest form of healing was the recognition that what you thought happened, never actually happened.

It was raining and we knew it would be a shitty day so we brainstormed on where we wanted to take our first zero. I made some calls—the first one being at the Fontana Village Resort. I asked the receptionist if we could book a room for one night and she said I had to pay for a minimum of two nights and my reply was, “Daaaamnnnn.” I hung up and eventually got ahold of a sweet woman named Amy who was the owner of Wing and Hoof Mountain Escape. She was more than happy to drive 45 minutes to save our asses and drive us back to her humble abode. She put our packs in the back of her pickup truck and even trail magic’d Pink his room since he didn’t have any more money.

When we arrived, we had some leftover breakfast, she gathered our laundry and we hung out in the kitchen as we warmed up. I asked her if she needed help cleaning the rooms and she said yes! So, we got the cleaning materials together and drove up the road to the tiny homes. We stripped all the sheets, cleaned the countertops and mopped the floors. She learned that I was in the process of writing my first book and said to me, “I have stories of shit that I went through, just to get to where I am right now. I could write a book, myself!” She didn’t share her story with many people, but felt open to share it with me. I don’t feel called to share that part of her life for her, but that woman definitely went through some heavy perceptions. It was a gift from Spirit being able to see her as she was now after the obstacles she had to jump through.

Amy’s man let us go feed the farm animals—we felt blessed to see the alpacas, goats, horses and donkeys! They said we were the first hikers who they allowed to go see the animals up close!

I was working on my blog in the hiker lounge when Amy’s stepmother came in. She sat down and started telling me stories from her youth. She told me about a cop named Danny that was really into her—said he would openly ask her out to dinner and how she always said no, because, “Anyone that good looking was definitely married.” She paused and smiled, “I used to have some great times with them craaazy people.”

I went over to Pink’s room and he asked if he could touch my boob so I said yes. He grabbed it, did a happy dance, hugged me and said thank you. He said he was stoked to finally have his own room because he hadn’t masturbated in two weeks. I said, “That’s wild. I masturbate every night.” Beans looked at me in confusion since we spent the nights in shelters. I said, “It’s a lot easier to get away with it as a woman.” He says, “I knew I heard something. I have really sensitive ears.”

St. Paddy’s Day, Amy dropped us off in town to go eat and hang out with our other hiker friends. I really wanted to run into Pinto—partially because I thought she was really fun to be around, but mainly because I had a crush on her. She happened to be hanging out on the patio at Bryson City Outdoors, which was where we got dropped off. As soon as we saw each other we screamed like little girls. She jumped over the patio railing to give me a long, deep hug and I nearly broke out in tears. Felt so good to reunite.

I met her friend, Tarzan—whom I quickly saw was more than her friend. I saw her kissing him and I thought to myself, I’d kill to have a taste. Sasquatch and I went to buy some pizza from Pasqualino’s Italian Restaurant. We got one for free since they messed up the order, so we trail magic’d the extra pizza for the hikers.

As we were eating, I watched a cop as he directed traffic in the intersection. No one understood why he was there, since there was no accident or traffic jam, but I was getting so turned on—it felt like live porn for me. The sexual thoughts started to infiltrate my mind as I envisioned him ordering me to get on my knees.

I sat with a group of hikers and talked to one named JJ. Of course, since I was there, we got on the topic of sex. I found them all very attractive so tried to suggest some group play on trail. They asked if I ever had an orgy and I said, “Several times, but one in particular will always have my heart. It was when I got fucked by seven guys at once.” I looked at JJ and followed up, “Well, not at the same time because I don’t have that many holes.” I gave him a wink, and while he looked stunned, Tarzan laughed and suggested, “Your trail name needs to be Trail Whore.” Funny enough, I actually had a similar thought when I was walking on trail. I noticed most everyone wrote their names on shelters and logs and I thought about writing, “Freyja is a whore,” for shits and giggles. Something about ruining my reputation felt exciting to me—at the same time, a turn on.

Tarzan and I got to talking. He said to me, “You’re hot… enticing. Scary and demonic, but I’m into you for some reason.” He said he could feel my hormones were are out of control—as though I was turned on by everything. He said he couldn’t figure me out, because most girls were head over heels for him. He couldn’t understand why I seemed totally uninterested in him.

He had plans with his friends to go get Chinese food—buffet style. He looked down at me and demanded, “Get up. We’re going to get food.” I said, “I love how dominant you are.” He said, “I love how sexual you are.” Then whispered, “And I love how submissive you are.” Beans witnessed our interaction, laughed to himself and said, “That was interesting.” Then asked, “Was that their shuttle driver?” I laughed hysterically and corrected him—Tarzan was a former thru-hiker who just wanted to hang out with some hikers.

When Tarzan came back, I told him about my crush for Pinto. She had bought me a cookie from the bakery so I sat down beside them to eat it. In a seductive tone, he said to Pinto, “We should bring Freyja over to our place.” She blushed, “Oo things could get real naughty.” We both started giggling; I could tell we wanted to experiment, but we were both coming off a bit shy. Tarzan eased the tension, “I’ll show you the way.”

Pink, Sasquatch, Checkmate, Beans and I went on a walk and bought some fudge. Checkmate said to me, “You’re a bad influence… always making us spend money.” He often appeared nervous that he wouldn’t have enough money to complete his thru-hike which I found funny since it appeared he had about 5x more than me. The only difference was that I preferred not to budget. If I felt inspired to spend money, I would—if not, I wouldn’t. Simple. I didn’t question my apparent actions nor did I dwell on how much I had left or where the next amount of money would come from. On trail, it seemed really easy for me to just be in a full state of trust.