My neighbor, Randy, asked me if I want to do a night at Hercules Glades Wilderness with him this past Sunday. We got to a trailhead around noon and it was loaded with cars. I'd never seen so many cars there before, but then we realized it was a 3-Day weekend and the weather was pretty nice.

We hiked down to the creek where the first campsite is and no one was there. We took off our packs to rest for a minute and decided we didn't want to stay there because there was no easy firewood to gather. It had all been picked clean for quite a distance around. Besides, we didn't want anyone walking right through our campsite and that was sure to happen.

Before we even got our minute in a group of about 4 very worn out looking backpackers came upon the site, took off their packs, and started unloading their gear. They didn't even ask us if we were going to stay there. They barely spoke to us at all, not because they were rude, but they were just worn out and beat up looking.

We crossed the creek and right there is another campsite just barely off the trail and we stopped there just to look at it and the same thing happened again with another small group of backpackers.

We kept moving and about a mile down the trail we came upon another group. This time there were six big guys and they all looked worn out and beat down too, almost sick looking. They barely spoke to us either.

It took me a bit but I'm pretty sure I figured out what was causing all that wear and tear on them. It was dead quiet that evening and that's what connected the dots...

They were all hungover. Had we been out there on Friday or Saturday night we would've probably heard them all whooping it up big time, but by Sunday they were all nursing their wounds. sick

I imagine they all must've been playing a sort of musical chairs with the campsites along the trails too. Randy and I didn't have to compete with them though. We have a home park advantage of knowing really cool spots far from the trails. grin
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"You want to go where?"