Oats on the Pinhoti: Day 12

Day 12, Wednesday

When I woke up, I immediately checked on my roommate for the night, who seemed to have flown the coop. I ate my morning poptart slowly, listening to the bees wake and emerge from the crossbeams of the shelter overhead. Eventually, the female bird returned and settled in her nest, her mate on close watch just beyond the overhang.

As I checked my phone, I realized my charging cable wasn’t doing so great. It’d been plugged in overnight (which I rarely do except for days I know I’ll be heading into town) and barely eclipsed 30%. My power bank still had some juice left, so I assumed it was a problem with the connection or the efficiency of the cable. If I could eliminate 3 things from the world, it would be 1) billionaires, 2) advertisements you can’t turn off, and 3) planned obsolescence.



Thankfully, I only had 10 miles to the road. From there, it was another 3 mile walk into town if I didn’t yellow-blaze (AKA hitch.) I took off down the trail once more and eventually clicked on a podcast episode I downloaded the last time I was in town: Quantum Birds, by Radiolab. If you’re a fan of Bill Nye the Science Guy, impossible questions, or the board game Wingspan, Radiolab is right up your alley. This episode in particular was about how birds orient using the magnetic field of the Earth (we think.) I was eventually rewarded for my curiosity when I witnessed a dog-sized owl swiftly fly away from me through the treetops. At that moment, every gram of my handheld bird-watching monocular was worth it.

I spent the morning rehearsing difficult conversations in my head. When every daydream ended in an emotional outburst on my end, I decided I wasn’t cooled off enough yet to begin any of those conversations before at least another week in the woods.



Eventually, I started walking past a dammed beaver pond. I’ve seen beavers on trail before, in Vermont and Pennsylvania, and it was always a special treat watching them do their thing. I removed my headphones and moved slowly forward for a while, scanning the pond and its surroundings for movement. Instead, I got two wood ducks to the face as I startled them from their nest under a small wooden bridge.

There was a water crossing a few miles from the road, my perceived end of the hiking day, with absolutely no way to cross without getting my feet wet.

But I reminded myself: This is the no rush hike. It isn’t 6:30 am and 40 degrees on the Colorado Trail with 23 miles to go. I can do this however I want to.

So, I planted my butt on the ground, took off my shoes and socks, and enjoyed the dip before wiping my feet dry on the other side. Would you look at that? It was also time for another snack.



A mile from the road, I passed a German woman hiking with her two small dogs. After we nodded hello, she asked, “Are you going all the way?” to which I was about to proudly respond with my Pinhoti thru-hike plan when she finished her sentence with, “to Maine?” I laughed. “Nope, just Alabama and Georgia this time.” She smiled, and we both continued on our merry ways.



These days it’s rare for me to hitch, as I can pretty much always plan a shuttle in advance. That being said, I was planning on hitching into town on this road walk. Despite throwing my thumb up whenever I heard a car approaching from behind me on the farmland highway, I had no such luck. On another trail this would’ve been pretty demoralizing, but on the Pinhoti I didn’t mind much – it was a beautiful day and I only had 10 miles under my feet anyway. I was even ahead of schedule and would be rolling in right at noon, which was exactly the time I told the caretakers of the Hearn Inn.



I eventually took my hair down and started turning around to face the drivers, smiling cheerfully with a small wave. Every car passed me by until, about a half mile outside of town, I stopped trying altogether. I passed construction workers along the way, one of whom asked me if I’d been out hiking long, and whose eyes promptly bugged out of his head when I told him I crossed the GA/AL border yesterday.

Despite walking directly into the center of town and up to a literal map of the couple blocks surrounding me, I got mixed up and ended up giving myself a walking tour of the town before finally locating my lodging for the night. Again, the extra steps weren’t something I was mad about. I passed a stationary, bright red caboose on a section of track surrounded by flowers and well-trimmed grass, and a restored 2-story cabin that used to belong to the Cherokee of the area before they were forced out by white settlers to undertake the Trail of Tears. I got a sick feeling, and downloaded a couple podcasts about the topic. I didn’t come on this hike to ignore feeling uncomfortable, and I owed it to the land and the people who once lived here to hold space for their history.



Cave Springs downtown is composed of a pharmacy, a pizza place, a southern cooking place, a coffee/ice cream shop, a visitor center/museum attached to an antique store, 3 more antique stores, a local grocer, and (of course) a Dollar General. The local grocer didn’t have much on their shelves (an issue with the warehouse I was told) and I got the rest of what I needed (plus some) from ol’ reliable DG down the road.



The historic Hearn Inn was one of my favorite lodging experiences on a long trail, period. It was also cheaper than any Days Inn or Hilton in a 100 mile radius, and located right smack in the middle of the Cave Springs downtown park. The rooms were decorated tastefully with the best pieces from the many antique stores in town, and were named after a color or person who attended the school when it stood over a century ago. The walls were adorned with framed black and white photos of class after class of serious-looking students who once called these halls home.



Now… the food. Oh man, town food. Boy, did it feel good to be hungry. I devoured fried catfish, green beans, coleslaw, and hushpuppies for lunch from the Southern Cooking place while flipping through my photos so far from the trip, and for dinner I treated myself to the local steak house right across the street (plus demolished whatever snacks I determined were excessive from my earlier grocery runs.)



Eventually, after returning to the Hearn Inn and indulging in a brief food coma, I got it together enough to decide on a course of action for my next resupply. I sorted my food into days to double-check my resupply and tended to the rotation of electronics on the charger. My goal was to get everything to 100%, but that was lofty considering the issues I’d been having with the cable.



The timing was perfect, and I ran into the caretakers hanging on the porch after my heavy steak dinner. They told me about the local spring that the town was named after, which was easily accessible from the park.

“Folks come from all around to drink this water. It is the cleanest water you will ever get straight from the source. You can taste how special it is.”



Sure enough, when I walked over to investigate, a local kid on a bike who couldn’t have been older than 10 skidded to a stop next to me. “This place has the goodest water EVER,” he said, definitively. “I believe you!” I said, and he continued on his way, mission accomplished. I wandered over to a spot where several other people were already gathered, filling 5-gallon jugs directly from what looked like a hole in the ground.

Now, I can’t see bacteria. But that being said, this water looked incredibly appetizing.



My plans for the next stretch ended with a half-day into Dalton to stay at the Days Inn on Sunday. I realized just how much food I had overpurchased (yes, I shopped on an empty stomach, and I was paying the consequence) and left a small container of peanut butter and cashews on the kitchen counter for the next thru-hiker who passed through.



I ended up waking around 3 am, restless, and wandered the park a while. I filled my bottles with water from the spring (but still filtered it because of who I am as a person), chatted with a cop who inquired what I was doing at this hour, and spent a quiet, never-ending moment staring up at the stars.

I think I’ll be back again, Cave Springs.