Date: 2007-04-20
From: Cherry Gap Shelter

To: Greasy Creek Gap
Miles today: 6.9

We had much better weather today after a wet start. The hike to Greasy Creek where we had sent some re-supply food was easy and short. We were planning on getting our food and moving on. The Hostel is called the Greasy Creek Friendly. This very rustic, deep rural NC home was a story in itself. At the trail head that led down a .6 mile jeep road to the hostel, there was a hand written sign tacked to a tree informing hikers on their way to the hostel that there was a ¢deranged¢ neighbor there that didn¢t like hikers and would do what he could to run them off, i.e. Make noises, have his dogs bark at us through the fence etc. We couldn¢t wait to see what awaited us and if it would be as bad as all that. Walking down the jeep road, all down hill incidentally, which meant .6 back up to the trail head¢¦, the deranged neighbor sure enough sicked his dogs on us through the fence. These dogs were mean too! Foaming at the mouth and all! When we got to the hostel Cee Cee the owner showed us around and confirmed that yes, the neighbor had been performing these shenanigans for quite some time and to just wait. We got our boxes and I discovered that I had sent the wrong box to this destination and my extra food was on its way to Damascus¢¦ OOPS. Luckily, she had small re-supply stuff to get me through, as did the guys with me. We went back out side just in time to be bombarded with really loud country music being blasted at us from the neighbor¢s yard which backed up to Cee Cee¢s yard. It wasn¢t bad except for the blown woofers in the large speakers¢¦ Noticing that we were more amused then perturbed, he then cranked his loud motorcycle up and began riding around his yard revving the engine. He just rode in circles for a while; friggin bizarre! We had quite the audience now and so he decided to crank up his riding lawn mover and ride it around for a while, then at times, he would just park it next to his fence and let it run, start a second lawn mower and repeat. Then, he would beat on his mower decks with sticks making loud banging noises. This guy put a lot of time and effort into trying to run us off. Little did he know that once this behavior gets out on the trail, this will be one of the most popular hostels on the trail if for anything, folks coming to check this side-show out! This guy was persistent, gotta give him that. He went on most the day. We decided to help Cee Cee out and stay in her bunkhouse for the night, she was so nice and sweet and we were curious to see what nocturnal entertainment ¢Crazy Bill¢ would provide. We ate dinner and watch The Day The Earth Stood Still, one of Cee Cee¢s favorites, and turned in. Late that night he started up an engine of some sort for a while and then started to chirp the car alarm attached to one of his riding lawn movers, ¢Chirp Chirp, wooo woooo woooo, rrr, rrr, rrrr, woooow oooow oo owowow¢   Nice. He let us sleep until 5:00 am when he got up to yell for his dogs, even though they were right beside him, he yelled for a good 5 minutes.   Then he let us snooze until 7:00 am sharp when he cranked up a lawn mover, parked it on the fence-line and went inside. The engine noise was really quite soothing at this point and we slept well until 9:00. This guy, plus the hostel itself lent themselves to a very colorful stay! Cee Cee told us she named her place the Greasy Creek Friendly because her neighbor was so ¢Hostle¢ Get it? Hostel/Hostile¢¦.???   I was glad to see her have such a positive attitude about her situation and was happy to stay the night and help her out.