Date: 2009-04-10
From: Hot Springs 

To: Spring Mountain Shelter
Miles today: 11.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Cell goodOG notesWe finally broke loose from the Hot Springs vortex. It isn't easy giving up a nice bed and walk out of town in the rain, but we did it. Fortunately, the rain slowed down as we left town, and then finally stopped a couple hours later. We were lucky to also have sunshine for most of the afternoon. That was short lived, and by the time we got to the shelter the sky was getting black and the wind was blowing. We arrived at the shelter and immediatly set up our tent. We knew a storm was coming so we then got water from the spring and started dinner. We hurried through dinner and finished eating just as it started raining. We were able to get everything done and put away without getting too wet.We climbed into our tent about 6 pm and we are now listening to the rain hit the tent. We finally have a cell phone signal and were able to talk to our family. Our son Chris just told us we are in an area where tonados have been seen (Eastern Tennessee) and that we should watch out for them. If we hear a freight train we'll seek shelter in a valley. We're seeing lightning and counting the seconds from the flash to the sound reaching us. If it takes at least 7 seconds to hear the boom sound, that is over a mile away. This is the only shelter we have, so this is where we'll be during the storm. Hopefully it will be uneventful night. C6 notesAfter my emotional day yesterday, today was a very nice day; my emotions are settled again. Yes, we started hiking in the rain, but we started at a slow pace and it felt very relaxing. We are back in the mountains that are "normal" for us (versus the way the trail is in the Smokey Mountain National Park). It's hard to explain the difference...but I definitely feel a difference. Of course having a beautiful sunny and warm afternoon sure helped a lot, too.Now we're in our tent praying the storm goes around, and not right on top of, us! I mentioned a while back that I often pray during the quiet times while we're hiking. The most important prayer I pray is "Thy will be done." Whatever God has planned for us is what will happen. So know that if it's God's will for us to be safe through the storm, or not, we are okay with that. Our preference is to hike on tomorrow, but it's all in God's control.Happy Easter everyone. For my Jewish friends, I hope your Passover is filled with blessings.Although we had trouble uploading our pictures yesterday, we were able to check out the notes you put in our Trail Journal. We love reading your notes!!! Thank you, each of you, for taking a moment to send us a note. They are so encouraging, and it's such fun to hear from each of you....even those of you whom we have not met.Had an interesting interaction this afternoon. "Dutch" went by us. We asked his trail name because we hadn't met him before, and shared our trail names with him. He took a second look and repeated "Old Goat," and asked if OG had a YouTube AT video. Turns out Dutch has watched the video multiple times and said he really liked it. It was fun to hear that, and Dutch enjoyed meeting the guy whose video he has watched a few times.We hiked for a while today with "Wicked Wahuna" today, and we're now camped near her, Braid, and Old Gear...stuck in our tents through the rain. Enough for now; I'm going to read my book, and OG is listening to TV shows on his radio. Good night.Old Goat & Check Six