We had five easy miles from our campsite to Highway 7. It would be our last resupply, and we had no idea how easy or hard the bitch into Hot Springs Village would be. The terrain was easy to cruise on and around 9am we arrived at the road. The air was still chilly, so we each put on a couple extra layers to begin trying to entice cars with our dirt covered faces, smelly stench, and thumbs raises to the sky. Forty minutes later the nicest car we had seen on the highway pulled over for us. They were actually headed the other direction, but in the thanksgiving spirit, they gave us a ride. We stopped first at Dollar General. The older couple offered to wait and take us back to the trail, but I wasn’t ready to rush, so we declined the ride. While we shopped I plugged my batter pack in to get a short charge during the chores. When I had repackaged everything I walked around the corner of the store, set out my sleeping bag and tent to dry in the sun. When it was all sprawled out I sat with my back again the thin metal paneling of the store, must watching people go about their thanksgivings. Then I was surprised when a man in torn jeans and a leather motorcycle jacket walked up and sat beside me. He pulled out a jar of moonshine and offered it to me. We talked for 20 minutes and I learned that Drake was a marine combat vet who had been blown up while on a mission in the Middle East. He walked over to sit next to me simply to assure I had somewhere to go on thanksgiving. It was such a kind gesture. I turned down the offer since Maggie and I wanted to spend thanksgiving on the trail. Before hitching back we wanted a bit of town food. Unfortunately on thanksgiving nearly everything was closed, so we had to settle for McDonald’s. We got the normal menu items and then stepped to the side to wait for the food. An older man walked in, asked for a refill on his iced tea then proceeded to ask us if we were hiking. Turns out the man is as Warren Doyle. Warren Doyle has done the Appalachian Trail 18 times and is a Trail legend, in the truest sense of the word. We grabbed our food and walked out to sit on the curb with him to talk about all things hiking and the outdoors. It was a pleasure to talk to Him about his experiences and our own. It was about as random an encounter as could ever be expected to have on a thru hike at a very average McDonald. After a couple of hours of chatting he drove us back to the trail and we did a few miles but stopped early at a shelter. We tried but failed to get enough cell service to FaceTime our families on the american holiday, so I walked over and made a small fire. Maggie went to her pack and dug out two Hormel Microwave Turkey dinners. We obviously didn’t have a microwave and the meal would be average at best and slimy at worst, but she insisted it was cute and we had to eat our highly processed turkey dinner on thanksgiving. So, I followed orders and we had our own thanksgiving at Oak Mountain Shelter on the Ouachita Trail.
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