Date: 2009-04-19
From: Deer Park Shelter

To: Hot Springs,NC
Miles today: 3.2
Weather: light rain

April 19/April 20 --After a downhill walk from Deer Park Shelter I found my way to Sunny Brook Inn hostel, aka, Elmer's, and got the last bed, until, of course, the next person left which was about ten minutes later. I spent the day in the rain doing the usual in town chores accompanied by some beer, provolone cheese and Doritos. I had dinner at the hostel which was organic vegetarian family style serving, cous cous based something with lots of mixed squash and salad, and carrot cake for dessert. I ate like a pig and drew some comments from sitter byers, but I was in the mood to pig out at any expense. My roommate for the night was Supertramp, who had been there a day, and after dinner we found ourselves in the music room, he with a guitar and me at the piano, making noise with the instruments and noisy laughter in between. He is a good storyteller and had me laughing to sleep when he told me about a guy staying in a shelter who was fed up with mice running across his eyes and lips to the point where he jumped up in the middle of the night, left the shelter and put up his tent. The following morning I suffered from a sudden onset of disorientation when I convinced myself that I had left my wallet at the pay phone the evening before. Frantic, near panic, I went down one side of the street, back up the other, there is one main street in Hot Springs, to my room where I found it, where I had left it, of course, in a never used inside jacket pocket. I felt like a lottery winner. Calling off the alert that I had personally placed half the town on I felt like a fool, a happy fool. Then, as I was signing in at the library for internet access, I noticed that the door was being held open, I turned to see sister-in-law Elaine holding it wide so that brother Clark could clear it with his cane and new knee. I expected them, but they were early so we went to the Smoky Mtn Diner for breakfast, a long breakfast, that lasted 'til lunchtime when Andy, my sister, walked in, early too, for a long lunch and long conversation, until they were ready to charge us rent, and we made our way across the street to the sidewalk that had marble "AT" blocks in the walk way every 25' or so. We were all walking the AT together! Up the short hill and back in the hostel we were examining the many artifacts like museum pieces before Clark and Elaine said goodbye. It was a time compressed visit, we probly talked, or I probly talked more than we had in the past two years in those hours. Andy stayed and poked around some books in the town library while did so internet stuff and later we went to the Iron Horse Station for dinner where we ordered and ate half the menu and a treat not on the menu, green food, brussel sprouts, delicious! with my rare NY strip steak and many Gaelic ales. We walked back to the hostel where Andy showed me a hard cover album, book really, of photos that she composed of her visit to Japan with a high school exchange student who had spent time at our house. Andy soon left, after showing me some recent photo's of cousin Sandy's surprise birthday party, well beyond her intended departure time, she "can't" drive in the mountains at night. I later retired quietly after trying to pick guitar and some light reading. I tried to sleep in my Strawberry Shortcake bed, as Supertramp described it, with my ridge rest under my slightly swollen left shin. It was a terrible night's sleep. There is something wrong with that bed, its cockeyed, the bottom sheet, with the elastic corners, came loose like the previous night, the outside lights were bothering me again, all to the point where I jumped up in the middle of the night with the pillow and covers and spread out in the music room floor until 6:30 when I cleaned up and left to have breakfast at the Smoky Mtn Diner where I sipped coffee, updated the journal and watched the steady rain in the puddles outside the back door.