Date: 2014-04-30
From: Budget Inn

To: Budget Inn
Miles today: 0.0

Last night was a good time. I enjoyed having a big, comfortable bed to sleep in. When we all got up, we checked the weather to see if anything changed and of course it did. There were chances of thunderstorms right in the middle of the day and we really didn't want to chance it because we had eight miles to hike. I was kinda wanting to go though, because we'd already spent two nights in town. After thinking it over for awhile, I decided it was best to stay. We're only going to hope later that Dan and Paul catch up soon (they already decided to stay). But then I also found out Paul is leaving the trail in about three days when we get to the NOC. It's hard to see now, but I know I'll be able to make up the miles later and save money at other times as well.    Sarah (Naptime) came in before she was going to hop on the shuttle to get back to the trail. She said she knew my birthday was tomorrow and felt bad that I wouldn't be able to spend it with family or friends back home so she wanted to do something for me. She handed me two leis, a 'Happy Birthday' tiara, and a wand and she said the only thing is that I HAVE to wear it all day tomorrow while hiking. It was such an incredibly sweet gesture especially because we haven't even gotten to hang out much to become good friends yet. I look forward to catching up with her on the trail though since she's on her own too. I'd like to be friends with her for sure!   "Btw", 'Nantahala' means "land of the noon day sun" as informed by Paul. It was really nice out earlier in the day. I went for a walk with Paul to the post office to send a postcard to my mom and check if his and Jim's boxes came. We went to a couple of firearms stores to find him a knife, picked up more Dominos for me, and went to the Dollar General to get Smartwater bottles and other little things. The Dominos was wonderful again and it was my lunch and dinner. Though I had tons of other snacks because I was fairly hungry all day. I got a Pad Thai Mountain House meal from Paul's excess of food so that'll be my birthday dinner tomorrow. I'm really excited about it. He bought a package of popcorn for me too that I ate nearly all of. And I discovered the whole bag is really not that bad for you. Which was kind of a letdown!    It did rain in the afternoon but no storms. Though you could never tell if that's how it was in the mountains. We lounged around a bunch and thought about going to the movies but didn't want to pay and there wasn't anything great showing at the theater anyway. Lots of television all day - South Park, Futurama, Tosh.0, Colbert & Stewart, Family Guy, and now Big Bang Theory. It has definitely been too long since we've been on the trail.    Someone left a baggie of condoms in the hiker box so the office ladies were laughing and saying someone must have thought they'd get lucky on the trail but just gave up and tossed them. Sad. So Paul grabbed the bag and brought them to our room. He told the boys to give us a few hours to get through them but we'll leave a couple for them. The jokes with this guy...   Even though we haven't done much today, I did like relaxing and my legs and feet definitely feel better. Hopefully they will on the trail too. Just being around Dan and Paul has been enjoyable too like I mentioned yesterday. Soaking up all the time together that we can! It seems like we'll be following the same daily mileage for the next few days too so we'll keep the fun going. I'm really looking forward to it and can't wait to get back on the trail!