We had been thrown out of the Yellow Deli, asked to not return.  Had we been loud, boisterous, drunk, disruptive, rude or destructive? No, we had commingled to often.  The three of us had sat in one bedroom or another all together watching TV on my tablet too many times.  We had done what we do every other day, spent time quietly together and that was not allowed at the Yellow Deli.  In truth we had tried to stay in the common areas, but as they filled with hikers and over filled we moved to the next room to watch in peace and quiet.  Ironically the best and only place to get reliable WiFi was in the bunk room.

No matter no mind, No mind no matter, we packed our stuff up and thanked them for our stay.  We left gracefully unlike some of the other hikers who had done the other things.  Reaching the trail head Flailing was still having his headaches and feeling off.  I, none of us were 100 percent that morning as we hit the trail again.  We pushed on down the flat mile of trail, flat on the guide book means rocks as you know.  Sure enough that one mile of trail which ran along the road no more than a hundred feet from it was a boulder crawl all the way to the pond.

Sometimes I don’t even know why I trust the guide book anymore, that was no longer my problem since I had thrown it out.The book had gotten soaked the other day and was a pound of solid wood now, so much more usable as a paper weight than it ever was as a guide.  Reaching the pond had taken a tremendous amount of effort for Flailing.  He was not doing well at all, his headaches were worse and you could see the exhaustion on his face.  We decided to stop on the two big boulders and eat.

One thing led to another and we spent the better part of two hours there by the pristine pond.  Goofing off, talking, eating all of our gummies, we decided on one last swim before it got too cold for the year.  The water was so cold, the other two had jumped in first and were standing on the same rock waiting for me to jump in.  Summoning my courage, I dove in and had my breath taken away instantly by the cold.  I swam over to the rock and joined them just before Flailing pulled Earthling back into the water and the found other rocks to hang out on.

I knew we were done for the day, there was no way we were going to climb The Wildcats so late in the day and suggested we find a place to camp for the night.  the three of us packed up our stuff and headed back down the trail, looking for places to camp for the night.  Sure enough there are very few places to camp when you are surrounded by moss covered boulders.  So few that we found two spots a good distance apart.  Not satisfied with what we found I set off to find another.  walking towards the water source I was surprised to see a large stream that made such noise it drowned out passing traffic.  Ecstatic whit my discovery of a babbling brook and flat spots, Iran back to the others and brought them down to the stream.

We discussed the merits of water and our location while Flailing took off across the stream.  Following after him we saw him running back to us excited.  He had found that the side trail we were on led to a 60 ft waterfall no more than a tenth or two down the trail.  A waterfall, how awesome, I thought.  Following after him we went to check out if it was possible to camp at the bottom.  I had not even gotten halfway down before I was met by Earthling saying this is where we were going to stay for the night.  That was that, we were going to sleep by the waterfall for the night.  Heading back to our stuff we moved quickly back tot he waterfall and jumped across to the other side.  Trying to stay away from the onlookers that came down to take pictures and look at the scenery.

Eating dinner and enjoying our selves, we took photos and set up camp.  Talking that night we aired our grievances from the day before and hoped for a better few days in the mountains.  we had won with the waterfall and reveled in our victory, dancing to music and laughing as the sun came down.  Our shortest day had become one of our bests days on trail just by chance and I was loving it.