Day 15: Thursday, June 19

(Susan) A long day of walking--from about 7:30 am to 9pm -covering about 31 miles. It was all road walk except perhaps 2 miles--time mile from where we were camped to the first road, then a short bit off Close Mtn Rd. At the end of the day the feet were pretty sore. Some highlights: - Around 11am the road went by an unsigned campground on Horseshoe Creek near the hamlet of Leadmine. We didn't think it was the campground mentioned in the guidebook (and it wasn't) but they had a coke machine with a big WVU emblem on it and cokes were only 50 cents. The guy running it--probably in his late 50's--took over for an elderly aunt who ran it for years. He took me into a small chapel where a lot of old family photos were displayed. He also showed me some of the original campground cottages--very small board and batten structures made of chestnut. He recently retired from Consolidated (mining). We spent about an hour chatting with him, his wife and a buddy also recently retired from Consol. We were not far enough into the day to stop for the night but they would have given us a tenting spot for $5. Very nice folks. - Also in Leadmine a couple of children (under the supervision of their mother and grandmother) were selling lemonade and brownies on the side of the rd. Saving money for a trip to Myrtle Beach. Can't imagine they would get many customers on this quiet country road so we tipped big. - We stopped for a break on the bridge to the old Cheat River Campground--now a private getaway for a Morgantown lawyer. The caretaker, Richard, saw us and stopped to chat. (We think he was really making sure we weren't planning to stay for the night.) What a character! He told us the campground ended up in the hands of the lawyer because the owner nearly killed a fellow with a baseball bat after the 2 got into a fight. He kept us entertained for quite some time. He told us many cycling races came right down the road there--and he didn't like it because he was a volunteer EMT and always "had to scrape a couple of them off the front of 18 wheelers". - Given that we road walked with NO TRESPASSING signs posted every few feet, we walked until 9 to get to a shelter 1/2 mile off the trail. We actually missed a turn en route due to oncoming darkness so it took us much longer to get there than expected--and I was taking a painstaking amount of time getting there since the jeep road to the shelter was a muddy mess and I was determined to keep my feet dry! As luck would have it, we made it to another shelter just before it started pouring. I was too tired for dinner. Ate a cheese stick and packed it in for the night.