Bud and Vicki Hogan's 1996 Appalachian Trail Journey
June 7
Spence Field Shelter to Double Springs Gap Shelter................................13 miles
Early morning and we're on "Rocky Top" of song fame. Beautiful wide open hiking up there. The Fields were just that-beautiful, grassy, green expanses. We ended up at Double Spring Shelter. We met Leo from Kentucky, an older man hiking at a leisurely pace. Later, a couple came in. The wife had been a ranger there in the Smokies, hubby was a school teacher.
Then it started to rain. How many days did we hike in the rain? We lost count. It was plenty. Thank goodness we had made it to the shelter before the rain had started. The darkness of evening had closed in around us and we all had settled in for the night, just the five of us. We were almost asleep when 4 men came traipsing in, wet and loud. They proceeded to strap on their headlamps and start cooking some god-awful spam teriyaki with gummy rice dish. Their headlamps sprayed light all over the shelter at their every move. The clanging of the pots and utensils was deafening to our half asleep ears. This incredibly noisy cooking farce took almost an hour, it was now ten o'clock. As these men said "grace" over their spam Vicki softly shared her thought with me. "If they're such Christians, aren't Christians supposed to be considerate of others?" They were labeled "the Christians" from then on whenever we spoke of them.
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