Day 65: Shenandoah's Part 1

Let me begin with an interesting  story from last night.  So I was at a shelter by myself and in the middle of a crazy dream.  Its around 2am and next thing I know someone is waking me up shining one of those big super bright mag lights right in my face.  Thats the last thing i was expecting at 2am when in a shelter by myself on a rainy night is for somebody to be waking me up like that.  It scared the stew out of me coming out of that intense dream.  I sat up in the blink of an eye and was like Huh? Huh? Huh? as i looked around.  Man i haven't been that startled in a long time.  But it ended up being a game warden asking if i had seen a squirrel hunter that had gone missing on the trail yesterday in the area i had hiked through.  I hadnt but with all the rain yesterday i could definitely see somebody slipping and breaking a bone or having a medical issue.  Plus it was hypothermic conditions last night so hopefully they found him.  Poor guy.  But anyways today I did 23 miles and entered Shenandoah national park.  I already saw a bear which was cool; there are supposed to be tons of them here so maybe i will see one that lets me take its picture before it runs off.  This afternoon i hitched into Front Royal, Virginia which was easy i got a ride within 5 minutes and somebody came up to me after i got done shopping at the food lion while i was packing my backpack and offered to take me back to the trail.  Plus i ate lunch while in town at KFC and drank sweet tea.  There aint nothing like southern hospitality and sweet tea.  It sure feels good to be back in the South.  There was a park ranger hanging around the shelter earlier.  There has been a problem bear here that has ripped open 2 tents, stolen people's shoes, and walked right up to the shelter during the day while everybody is there.  So the rangers have to "haze" the young, juvenile bears when they do this.  First they blow an air horn to try and scare it, if that doesn't work they shoot it with a paintball gun, and if that doesn't work they shoot it with a 12 gauge shotgun and rubber pellets.  I want to get paid to shoot a nuisance bear with a paintball gun that would be sweet!  I would aim for its balls, i guarantee you it would never come back.  But the bear didn't show up this evening... i was hoping it would just so i could see it get shot with something.  I guess the people tomorrow night will be the lucky ones.