We prepared for rain first thing in the morning, like when we first arrived but better, even before coffee, because the problem with using a car awning is that you have to take it down if you want to go anywhere, Well the rain did come, pretty heavy at times, and we devised some tricks to make the tarps self-shed the water and at the same time collect into our buckets for washing purposes. We could see by radar that the rain would stop in 2-3 hours, so we planned a short hike on the towpath that led from the town of Florida (section point 9) directly back to our campsite. We were confused at the time and thought that we did not have to leave until the next day, Sunday, but also were worried that someone had booked the campsite right next to us for that Saturday night. Nevertheless, we set out after the rain in Wendy’s car for Florida and had a nice towpath hike along a well-maintained trail. When we returned, we saw a VW Vanagon parked close to our campsite and figured that was our new neighbor for the evening. We settled back into our chairs under our tarps and were deciding if we could fit in more hiking that day since it was only 2:00, when our neighbors asked us when we were going to leave? After a little discussion, including the camp host coming by, we realized that we DID NOT have our site reserved that night, it was reserved by our new neighbor along with the one next to it. HOW EMBARASSING! We apologized profusely, tried to break camp as fast as possible, which was complicated by having to take down the awning/tarps, get Wendy’s car in Florida, and load the bikes. We managed it all in 2 hours and were done by 4:00! While April and Wendy were getting her car I did manage to talk with the owner about his 1980s Vanagon, which he apparently had since his college-aged kids were little and went to many VW car shows with.
We were all worn out and flustered by this campsite self-eviction, so we celebrated our BT adventure with a nice outdoor meal in Freemont, a town we had previously hiked that is home to the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center. So we never got a chance to hike the remaining BT between section points 9 and 11, which appears to be mostly off-road, but this will have to wait for a future camping adventure.
