“Sucked into the vortex” is hiker slang for staying in town , at a hostel, or shelter for too long. Today I did just that. I talked for too long (I know y’all are all shocked by that) and ended up deciding to stay another night. I have several defenses (only needed to justify to myself, but I’m going to share anyway): 1) it was another yucky rainy day and I am so tired of being drenched to the skin and walking on wet rocks. Yes I know I’m just going to have to suck it up and deal with it, but not today; 2) I had already decided to have a slow start to the day because there was supposed to be less rain in the afternoon than the morning. Didn’t happen, it rained all day; 3) the general store didn’t open until 11am and I wanted one of their trail famous burgers. Did happen and I ate the entire thing while watching a guy eat a half gallon of ice cream in 45 minutes (something you do to celebrate walking half the AT); 4) a veteran asked me for help and of course I answered his questions gave him resource referrals and ended up answering questions for several other veterans. A large number of people I meet on the trail are veterans. I ended up showing a couple of them how to access the va.gov website; 5) a couple of other hikers who stayed over a second night actively campaigned for me to stay and talk. We all know I rarely pass up an opportunity to chat. Then it was just too late to walk the 7 miles to the next shelter and I didn’t want to camp in the rain. So I stayed nice and cozy in the hostel.

I ended up organizing an order from Uber Eats for about 15 people and spent the evening teaching people how to setup and use Venmo, Uber Eats, and Apple Pay 😂

Tomorrow the weather will be better and I will head out before everyone is awake so I don’t get sucked into the vortex again!