Day 3 : Saturday, June 7

(Dwight) The little fire we built last night was fun. The smoke helped to keep the bugs away. Also it is a 'natural' deoderizer. Our clothing smells like sweat, not rank, body oder.

We hiked the ridge of Peters Mt. all morning. The oaks created a thick canopy but didn't provide opportunities for a view. About 9:30 am, we reached the Raptor obseratory on Peters Mt--a windowed cabin purched high above the tree tops. It had glass windows for viewing in all directions. It was very well built, with benches and a wrap around porch. Charts of sightings were pasted on the walk. We took a long break and absorbed the panorama. Only saw one turkey vulture, not migration season.

We meet 4 folks walking to the observatory as we continued on. They were birders coming from the parking lot at the base of the Mt. They had the smell of clean clothes and soap. They are the only people we have encountered on this trail since we left tha AT.

It was hot hiking til Laural Branch, the start of a 25 mile missing section of the trail. Did I say we were hot and tired? So, we stuck out our thumbs to try and negotiate the 25 miles of blacktop road in our future. Got a ride from the first car, a nice local woman named Valerie. Left us at a gas station/restrant at Paint Branch about 7 miles down the road. A nice little place in the beautiful rolling farming valley, in the shadow of Peters Mt. We drank pop, ate ice cream and watched a parade of locals,tourists and motorcyclist stop for gas and a cool drink.

Our next hitch took us to Sweet Spring, a community of a few houses and a local landmark. A huge brick building (plus several smaller buildings) in the Jefferson style, designed by Tommy J. himself. It was a place for the well to do to go in the early 1800's and rejuvinate in the hot springs there. It had later been used as an old folks home. It was abanboned by the state in the 1980's. It looked like the campus of grand resort, in serious dislrepair. We had heard the they rented rooms from bikers in Paint branch, so we wandered are the crumbing campus looking for anybody (on a Friday night).

We found Warren, the developer for the resoration peoject, washing his car. We asked for a room. His associate Amanda, lead us to a restored farm house on the property. We found a shower, and a clean bed in a neat old place, where we did some exploring latter in the evening.