Lovely, trail ange

No thru-hike would be complete without "trail magic" provided by "trail angels", volunteers, real angels, who take their personal time and money to help hikers. This ranges from the less organized who take you in their trunk, half crushed between two hastily pushed crates, to those who save your life by maintaining water caches in the driest stretch of the trail, or spend their weekends distributing burgers at crossroads. All contribute to making a somewhat special adventure truly magical.

Let's start with an example:

I remember Lovely, who picked me up one Sunday morning. I had gotten up at six o'clock and was at the next road at 7 a.m. No one was passing by and the minutes were starting to drag on. I really wanted to get to town for breakfast and go to church at 9 a.m.

Lovely was going to take care of her goats. When I got in, she apologized for not being able to take me all the way to Quincy, but it was already fine with me that she would take me to the next town. We talked a lot. When it came to goat cheese, she had found an expert, my home county making France’s best goat cheese, and that’s saying something. Talking about home also made me feel good.

At that moment, I had lost my group for two or three weeks, and I had just learned that Kiki had already left the town where I thought I would find her. I suffered every night from my shoulder injury. The days were long, allowing me to walk longer, but tiring. All the hikers around were with their friends. My spirits were starting to take a little hit.

Instead of stopping when we arrived at her farm, she went to get me a goat cheese and drove me to town. I first had a huge breakfast. I went to church. I did my shopping and ate again, sitting in the supermarket parking lot.

The small goat cheese tasted fresh, authentic. Just good food made by someone who cares about doing their job well, and which I had not tasted in the US for a long time.

And then the next day, after a night in an Airbnb run by another lovely person who charged me half price when she learned that I was doing the PCT and who took me back to the terminus, I left. Happy, satisfied, and rejuvenated.

Somehow it had just taken a really good goat cheese.