Date: 2016-04-15
From: Birch Spring Gap

To: Derrick Knob Shelter
Miles today: 17.2
Weather: scattered clouds

Today was a new day for all of the nature lovers on the trail. Instead of the ground being covered in dead leaves, green shoots were breaking through with little white flowers. As the morning progressed, the sun made them open, revealing a beautiful light purple interior. Fields of these covered the ground! Within our first mile we hit our third state, Tenessee! The Appalachian trail straddles the North Carolina Tenessee border for a couple hundred miles (basically until we get near Virginia). Unfortunately, nothing marked our entry into the magnificent new state. Despite the lack of fanfare, we were still thrilled to have made it (sure we had no idea that we did make it until a reviewing our progress later lol). Around lunchtime, we decided to have some delicious bagels! Lunch is filled with options on the trail. We try to have some type of bread, either bagels, tortillas, flat breads, (any that won't get squashed in our packs). We use the bread to then convey some type of protein (peanut butter, tuna packets, etc.). Our favorite recipe is to take a packet of chicken meat (they sell it near the canned tuna, bags weigh less then cans), and mix in taco seasoning. Yum! He decided it would be fun to experiment with the other meats in that section, things like herring and anchovies. At the hiker box in Fontana, he had scored a free can of sardines in hot sauce. Yum? Unfortunately, no. YUCK!!!! Why would they sell fish bait in the human section. We are pretty sure that every bear in the park was drawn to that stinky rotten fish. Gross. Folks, these things are not like Pringles. Very easy to stop after just one bite.We wanted to get a lot of miles in today to make up for yesterday. We like to hit at least 10 miles per day, preferably 15. The rules in the national park requiring us to stay near shelters limit our options as well. Today we could either go 11 miles to Spence field or 17 miles to Derrick Knob. We made it to Spence by early afternoon, and had plenty of energy to continue on for a long day... As we left Spence, we ran into a guy who we had been crossing paths with on and off through the day. He had started at Fontana dam (8 miles before us!) and was moving fast. We just assumed we would never see him again but when we went about a mile further uphill he came back and said it looked treacherous so he decided to turn around. We had already climbed a small mountain and couldn't imagine giving up that mile, so we pushed on despite the ominous warning. It was a steep climb up to a place called "Rocky Top" in Tennessee. It was a perfectly clear day- there was no smog, or smoke, or telephone service up on that mountain. Rocky top will never be home sweet home for us...After getting down the mountain, we kept thinking we were really close to camp, but we were really 4 miles away. They seemed to last an eternity. Hungry again, exhausted, we fumbled into a very full camp. The quote of the day came from mr fabulous, who said, "I looked at my journal for the last two weeks and all of the entries were about food." Dinner was delicious, chased down with some hot chocolate. What really made that dinner special was the other achievement of the day, we were now officially under 2000 miles to the finish line (sleeping at mile marker 1,999.8)! What a great day.