"Town got me"

So there is this hiker we all know called "Yul the mule". He is a
young sweet country guy from Gatlinburg, TN. I didn't know anyone
actually was from Gatlinburg, but anyway, I digress. So Yul had
generally been hiking and/or camping with us but usually was ahead of
us. One day the three of us saw him coming up behind us, and we asked
him how he got behind us. He said in his young country Gatlinburg, TN
accent, "town got me". You may have had to been there to get the true
amusement of this statement, but this is by far the best line I have
heard on the trail yet. Just thinking of the exchange makes me laugh
outloud hysterically. Ok, and the fact that there is a guy on the
trail, name withheld, that looks exactly like Garth from Wayne's
World. That makes me laugh hysterically as well. You might just have
to be here for that one, too.

Other than having to persuade a band of grumbling boy scouts from
camping right on top of us this evening, we hardly saw anyone else
today at all. ("No really, there are other campsites just up the
trail..." as we looked at them with their, "we want to stay up late
and build a huge bonfire look in their eyes"...) They say we are
"ahead of the bubble". UhHuh. It will be interesting to see what
number we all are. They tell you at the ATC how many other thru-hikers
have checked in ahead of you. I am pretty sure, somewhat
metaphorically speaking, that I am IN the bubble.

Being camped right outside of town, as I often do, you get to hear the
sounds of "town". What this means is trains. Most small trail towns
have trains and lots of them. You also hear train sounds for sometimes
days after leaving towns. Safari and I joke all the time about how we
thought we would never really truly get away from Erwin, TN because we
heard the train every day for days. It was like Groundhog Day. As I
sit in my tent just a couple of miles outside of Harper's Ferry, I
wonder how many miles north will I hear these trains?