MST Trek Day 58

Today we started our last 7 miles of tail walk for a long time.  We did some filming with Chris and Amy and ran into 5 dogs, luckily with no incidents.  After we hit the road, the excitement began for the day.  Instead of calling this leg "Section 28," I'm giving it some new names: "Where in the hell am I?" and "How did I get here?"  As it turns out, there is a new Falls of the Neuse Road AND a Falls of the Neuse Road, both of which connect different parking areas of the dam.  We mistakenly got on the wrong one, where none of the markers on the road corresponded with the directions. . . a blind person's worst nightmare. We downshifted to Plan B, which was to ask the locals how to get back on track.  I am really surprised that so many people in Wake Forest are also unaware of the changes.  We asked several people, and after sharing our dilemma, they gave us what they assured us was the solution to getting back on track.  Unfortunately, that proved not to be the case-- it cost us many miles.  During this time, News Channel 14 called me for an update.  I gave an interview, but due to my distractions, it was not one of my better ones.  The news guy gave me another opportunity to solve our problem. I asked him how to get to the roads I needed.  He also had no idea.  Next came a call to Laine, who was baffled and in a rush, as she had to be somewhere and couldn't be late.  She consulted Chris and Amy via smart phone and they called me.  They thought they had a solution; unfortunately,  it didn't work for me, as I couldn't follow the directions from where I was.  After hiking 12 miles, we were left with no option but to hike back to the dam. We then called my Trail Angel extraordinaire, Jesse, from last week.  He came through for us-- dropped everything he was doing to jump in the car and came to our aid.  By this point Tennille and I had one 20 miles in some very hop weather, and were spent.  Jesse has lived in this are for 30 years; he explained that the area has changed dramatically and streets have changed names, been added, and some simply don't exist anymore.  We drove a route to my final destination, but it differed from the Scot Ward book and the interactive Mountains to Sea Trail site.  I had hiked a combination of trail miles from all sources, yet none led to the planned end.  We attempted to connect with the church for permission to camp, but no one answered the phone during the day, and no one was there when we arrived.  Following that, we called it a day, went to a motel, and are hoping to get back on track early in the morning.