I hadn’t enjoyed all that much about the previous two days, even though a bad day out here is better than a lot of the good days back in the world. I began to think about some of my previous travels and I remembered the time I traveled to Ireland. One of my evenings there I met a wonderful girl and we got to talking about how we each loved traveling. I remember us comparing the places we’d visited as well as the places we still wished to see. She told me to always remember that often times it is the journey that is more important than the destination. Sometimes to enjoy the journey you need to shake things up and look for joy in the small things.  

As I lay there in my tent at Plumorchard shelter thinking I began to realize the freedom I have in doing this hike. This is my hike. If I want to sit in a tent and read all morning I certainly can. There is no one looking over my shoulder to make sure I stay on some set itinerary. I am bound only by the limits of what I am willing to carry. This realization brought the joy that had been missing back to my heart. The pleasant sunny day dried out my gear and lifted my spirits. I packed up at a relaxed pace, got some water on the way out of the shelter, and headed on down the trail.  
My unexpected half day meant I wouldn’t be hiking as far but today I would be passing a significant milestone. At about 78 and a half miles on the trail I finally reached the border between Georgia and North Carolina. I may not have hiked the entire length of Georgia but I had finally hiked all of the Appalachian Trail in there and I had completed that state. As is often the case the clear skies brought stiff breezes and colder temperatures. Luckily the campsite at Muskrat Creek was shielded from most of this as it lay in gap along the banks of a beautiful creek. The shelter was crowded but I was able to find a nice tent pad near a hammock camper. We traded stories about our ailing knees and she gave me a few tips on hanging my bear bag. I definitely needed them because up to that point when hanging my bear bag I looked like one of those “touched” individuals that southern women exclaim, “bless his heart” at the sight of. I cooked some dinner and settled into my sleeping bag to read before drifting off to sleep.