Date: 2012-05-14
From: TN County Road 293

To: Route 19E
Miles today: 14.0
Weather: clear sky

Up at 6:00 am to pack up my gear but not before indulging myself to a cup of coffee as I sat in the Jacuzzi tub in my room (I was too tired to muster the energy to get into it last night after I finished my journaling.) Breakfast was the most incredible spread of food I've ever seen -- too unbelievable to begin to describe. Trust me on this: it was a fantastic spread!As I sat down to eat, I was surprised to see Amos Moses coming downstairs. Unbeknownst to me, he was in the room next to mine. He had arrived here the day before me (and thereby avoided the grueling trek over the Bald Mountains that was the topic of everyone's breakfast conversation.) He told me that yesterday he had Terry (Terry and Mary Hill are the owner-operators of the Mountain Harbor B&B) drop him off where the Trail crosses a back road that enabled him to do a 14 mile slack-pack back here to the B&B and that as soon as breakfast was over, he was going to be dropped off there again to head North toward Hampton. Since it was still raining outside and the Weather Channel was calling for rain for most of the day, the idea of doing the same thing he had done yesterday became an "audible" and off I went for what proved to be a delightful day of South Bound slack-pack hiking in Tennessee. The trail was in pretty good shape insofar as roots and rocks were concerned, but it was extremely muddy just about everywhere. The rain came and went all day long -- by the time I made it back to the B&B, I felt as if I had been put through three rinse cycles! The Trail passed two beautiful waterfalls, one at which I stopped for lunch (just before rinse cycle #2 began.) The Trail ran alongside the Elk River for a while where I watched three deer swim across it, then bound across an open pasture and into the woods beyond.Because I was traveling South, I ran into lots of people whom I've met over the course of the past two weeks including ¢Ginger Snaps,¢ ¢Oliver,¢ ¢Waterboy,¢ ¢Croc-a-Toe-ah,¢ ¢Yogi¢ and ¢Boo Boo,¢ and my buddies, ¢Poncho¢ and ¢Moss.¢ I also saw ¢Spiderman,¢ who told me that last night he and ¢Six-Six¢ had to help a hiker who had hyperthermia so bad from crossing the Roan Highlands that he couldn't even undo his pack because he was shivering so uncontrollably and had lost the sense of feeling in his fingers.I made it back to Mountain Harbor in just enough time to shower and go back to Bob's Dairyland for the second night in a row for a platter of pulled pork, cold slaw and French fries, which I ordered again tonight, for the second night in a row. Last night, however, I had a big salad to go along with it: tonight I had a vanilla milkshake instead. I ate with ¢Da-Ha-Wei¢ (Dave, whose Trail name is Cherokee for "Bearded One" but is too had to pronounce) and Section Hiker, Courtney, both of whom I had had dinner with at the Chinese place back in Erwin. Really nice people.When Terry returned us to the B&B, Amos Moses and his wife were on the porch. She had driven in from Kansas City to see how he's doing and to go to ¢Trail Days¢ with him. She had seen his picture in my Trail Journal and had sent it on to his parents, all of whom appreciated knowing that he was still alive and doing well. We chatted for a while and then, after they left, ¢Da-Ha-Wei¢ (Dave) and I smoked a cigar together on the porch.It's now nearly 10:00 pm and I am very glad I called the "slack-pack audible" at breakfast this morning. Had I stuck to my original plan, about the time I would have been setting up my tent and trying to get dinner. This would have coincided with when "rinse cycle #4" which came rolling through these Tennessee mountains and I would have been drenched. Instead I'm about to crawl into my king-size, four-posted bed, feeling nice and clean, dry and warm, and well fed! Who said hiking HAD to be difficult?