The Weird Couple

•They were odd. They didn’t introduce themselves the first night, but that was ok with Caleb and I. They did have a tent set up in the shelter, but were in the middle of taking it down when C and I rolled up, because the 4 girls (I’ll talk about them a little later) were going to be spending the night in the shelter as well, since their tents leaked. The guy was a scruffy looking fellow with what appeared to be a Confederate Hat on, pretty unshaven. His wife/partner was kinda chunky, coke-bottle glasses, and long dark hair. They both smoked a lot, but didn’t have actual cigarettes. Instead, they had loose tobacco and papers, which they rolled using this thingy that made them look like proper cigarettes. The smoke was annoying. Since C and I set up relatively close to the shelter for lack of energy to look for a better spot, and the fact that it was raining, we kept smelling smoke as we were drifting off to sleep. Urck. The morning came, and the Uncle and Nephew, then the 4 girls rolled out. C and I were taking down/getting ready to take off, and the couple: sitting there, listening to a portable radio they had, and smoking. They weren’t thinking of moving. They had lots of stuff up on clotheslines tied to trees, and they definitely also had a little sled thing made from lashing together branches, so they could haul a lot of this crap around. After talking to other people we met farther down the trail, it was discovered that they were probably living on the trail. I don't know how common this is, but apparently there are always one or two people just living in a shelter somewhere. As we discovered shortly thereafter, there's a road to a town not too far from where the shelter was, so they could roll into town whenever they needed something, and either bum food or...well, I don't know. Maybe they were collecting unemployment at a PO somewhere along the way. This couple were two of only...maybe 3 people that weren't cool on the trail. The other guy was named Kim, and he had a dog with him named - inspiredly - dawg.