After showers and a little rest we drove to Riverside Restaurant which Wes had suggested. It was crowded when we arrived. It was a very pretty homey place full of the locals. I noticed a river running right past the screen porch full of diners on the back of the building as we were led to our table, and WOW there was WES and his wife DIXIE!! He was very happy to see us!! He hollered " OH, the SISTERS MADE IT!"
He told us that the girl who we helped Mandy had died that night...oh we were sad to hear that..he also told us he had taken the TRIO, Matt, Soraya, and Mic off the trail at Woody Gap. Soraya had injured her Achilles tendon and couldn't walk. They had gotten to a phone and called Wes. SO that explains how they got to the parking lot ahead of us without us passing them again!! Wes told us he had asked the Trio if they had see the Sisters, and they told him we were fine and having a BLAST!! Guess we had everyone fooled!
We enjoyed the meal, it was great! We talked excitedly about the past events, and laughed a lot! It was great to have made it through, when apparently others had not. We were on cloud nine!!
Back at the cabins we discovered FLEAS--this was bad. We had to use our insect repellent once more time. We sat around the table and talked for a while, sharing our swollen leg stories and bug bites, of which I had none, I think I smelled too bad to bite!
We were really surprised at Emma's swollen feet and legs and we were concerned. She shook it off as nothing, but it took sometime for them to return to normal. I think it was climbing Blood Mt. that did them in.
That night we all slept in soft beds, all our own. We even had two pillows each, which beat the dirty laundry pile we had been using on the trail...PUGH!!
In the morning we feasted on Frosted Flakes and toast. We had a lengthy discussion about Emma's future as a write. We left the cabin and checked out at noon. We went to the Walasi Yi Center and got our tee shirts...we saw some fellows there who came off the trail and stopped to shower..and change clothes. They had the walk of the trail people, you know that walk, like you're walking on sharp glass fragments, and it really hurts! We felt a certain camaraderie with these people, even thought we didn't know them. Emma asked ow far they were going and they said another week or as long as their legs held out, and she understood that.
We left there and went to Pappy's Place and checked out the antiques. We were all spent out and didn't stay long. The drive home was a -typical with fast food stops and wrong turns. We didn't talk much , all thinking about the past 5 days, and how it had changed us forever.
We arrived home to our waiting family and told them the highlights, but you had to be there to appreciate it. They tried to understand, and we knew it!!
