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Don't know where they called me from today, but I could hear birds in the background. They were near a restaurant someplace. They went to bed when it was still light out last night, and went to sleep hearing lots of birds...

June 4
Hiked out of Waynesborough, 20 miles, to second shelter. By the time they passed the first shelter it was getting foggy, a little wet, and cold. And when they reached the second shelter, it was already full. They decided to continue on to the road to see where they could go.

MyBrother, who was coming in for the weekend to meet his brother, stopped on the foggy road to pick them up. He drove them to the campground. They went to the ranger station to check in and see if they could get a campsite or, preferably a cabin.

The ranger-lady told them to just go across to the path and pick a campsite, and then come back.. and as they looked outside, Ruth said you couldn't even see the road that they were supposed to cross. As they were contemplating whether or not they wanted to try to find the path in the fog, the ranger called them back in - she figured she'd just call the other nearby campgrounds to see if anything was available.

Lewis Mtn. campground, and Big Meadow campground both had cabins, and of the two, only Big Meadow had a cabin that wasn't booked (they thought of tenting, but they were cold and tired and wet from all the fog). Big Meadow was 30 miles away.

The ranger mentioned there was a store nearby, and if they hurried, they might get there before it closed. As they headed out past the landromat, they met Rising Sun and M, two people they keep crossing paths with (the first time was in Fontana Dam), but had never been able to really talk to for any length of time, or even have a beer with. Anyway, Rising Sun and M dropped our hikers off at the Wayside store/restaurant thing that the ranger had mentioned, which had closed early on account of the fog (since there weren't many customers, etc).

Ruth and Dad tried hitching, but it was so foggy that there wasn't much traffic, and so they started walking down the road a ways, and then a different ranger-woman stopped - she was headed to Swift Run gap, which was 15 miles short of Big Meadow (but still 15 miles closer than they currently were). After a few curious pauses in their conversation (why would healthy hikers want a ride, anyway?) She dropped them off at the top of this hill just before it turned to go down to Swift Run.

They hadn't even picked up their packs all the way when another truck came into view climbing up the hill. Ruth practically fell over herself to get to the road and get her thumb out. It was another ranger! And he happened to work at Big Meadow, and so took them there.

Dad thinks getting 3 consecutive rides from rangers was just too coincidental, and said that the first ranger must have called the other two, but Ruth is convinced that they never would have been able to arrange something like that.. it was too coincidental.

June 5

The weather was forecasted to be worse on Saturday, so they took a zero day rather than get lost in the fog somewhere. Since they'd arrived late Friday night, they had to switch rooms, but the new room was in the lodge, so it was closer to the bar and the restaurant, and the laundry room, etc. So they did their laundry.....

And their phone went dead. Hope to finish this later.

References

¹ Loft Mtn. Campground-SNP, VA is 875.0 miles.