Day 5, Antlers

July 18

51.8 down, 2135.8 to go

It poured down rain all night with thunder and lightening. Glad we put the rain fly up after all! We woke up at 6:40, on the road by 8:59. It took us a while to pump water for the two of us. The hike was pretty level, we were able to do 13 miles. We met ItsAllSmallStuff, a sweet 66 year old man from Texas, doing a flip flop hike (start your hike NoBo and go until halfway, then switch to SoBo). He said, "at my age, I stop when I need to." 

We were teased along the way when we came up to what looked like our first trail magic! No way -- free trail mix?! There's a note..."to Sam. Congratulations! You're almost done." Ah man, so sweet that Sam's family cared enough to have trail magic arranged in the wilderness, but come on! What a tease for the rest of us, and right around lunch time too! 

We are camping at Antlers, right on a little Peninsula. We are the only ones here so we ended up bathing a bit. Not enough to feel clean, but refreshed. It started pouring down right as we got to our campsite so we put up the tent frantically. As soon as we finished setting up the tent, it stopped raining. Eating dinner in the tent, I told NotYet to enjoy the meal and take small bites. He said "Believe me, I'm  enjoying the big bites."

Ethan's trail name is officially NotYet. Just a few days into the trail he still hasn't had a name and people kept asking, he would say, "NotYet" and it stuck!