Day 19: March 20th

This pic is the view from Cheoah Bald, the highest point we hiked today. Elevation 5,062.

Hiked 10.5 + 5 - from Wesser, NC (elevation 1,723) to Locust Cove Gap, then back UP to Cheoah Bald to search for my dad who hadn't arrived at camp after 1 hr. 50 mins and he typically is only 45 mins to 1 hr. behind me.
What a terrifying hour + as I hiked/ran as fast as I could to find him and knowing to myself that something was definitely wrong. Our hiking buddy, Steadfast hiked with me me back there too but wasn't as panic stricken and flying along the trail as I was. I finally caught up to another person after an hour + coming from that direction who definitely had not seen him, so I could turn around and start looking down some other trails that branched off the AT. But how could he go on those? He's an accomplished thru-hiker and there's no way he would have gotten the trails confused. Thank GOD, one of the guys that is part of a group that also set up camp where we did caught up to us - he was running to catch up with us to tell us that Firewalker was back at the campsite. What? How did we miss him?? Oh - he walked past the campsite when he saw it (@ exactly 45 mins after we got there) but he saw all the tents and kind of recognized mine, but didn't see me or Steadfast so he thought we must have hiked on b/c the campsite was too crowded. Sigh. Since when has my dad not stopped to talk to people? He could have simply asked one of the guys at the camp if they had seen us. He usually chats with people and within the first 5 minutes of meeting them, tells them his life story, his thru-hiker status, that he's hiking with me, his age, MY age, that he's a retired San Jose firefighter, that he served in the Air Force Canine unit, etc. So why this time is he Mr. Shy? Sigh. Anyway, we all reunited and had some good laughs over this. But I'm still frustrated that he would move on, thinking that we would change the plan like that without at least giving the message to someone - I'm not mad though, I'm glad he's ok. I'm exhausted from hiking way more than I planned today...