Date: 2005-03-31
From: Tent, between Glassmine Gap & Rock Gap Shelter

To: Hotel, Havens Budget Inn Franklin NC
Miles today: 5.3

I am sitting here in Franklin, NC outside the Haven's Budget Inn. I'm in a lawn chair drinking beer, hanging out with trail friends, styling in my $1.86 thrift store outfit, and chilling to music. Seemed like a great time to journal. Today was a good day. It had its ups and downs. The downs started late in the night. We had such an awesome day yesterday; obviously it was time to pour some kind of liquid from the sky. The rain started in the middle of the night. Coincidently, the emergency offload of the burritos started at about the same time. Troll woke up and was frantically looking for the trowel and the toilet paper. When he got back to the tent, I remembered that every piece of our raingear was hanging on a line to dry out. My sweetie went and got all of the raingear and tossed it into the tent. As he started fumbling into the tent, my emergency offload was deemed necessary. Troll was sleeping at the entrance of the tent and I was sleeping at the back. I fortunately was able to find a headlamp in my mad scramble for the outside. After I broke the sanitation trowel in my frantic attempt to dig enough dirt to cover up my emergency offload, I stumbled back to the tent and it was Troll's turn. Hey, but this time he had the headlamp. He came back to the tent and it was my turn. Eventually we got to sleep. The rain continued and the sun rose. Oblivious then woke up and he also needed to perform an emergency offload. So we put him into one of those rain gear tops. If there had been a hiker passing by at that time they would have seen a little boy with a little naked butt. So we packed up in the rain. Big surprise. We did notice that in North Carolina there must be a memo stating that any precipitation must be accompanied by thunder and lightening. We are from the Pacific Northwest and we rarely have any thunder or lightening with our rain. Washington has mellow laid back clouds that really have no need to discharge their electrical mismatches. The clouds in North Carolina are angry PMS clouds that are determined to discharge any electrical imbalance immediately. Believe me the lightening certainly adds to the excitement of hiking on the exposed mountains. Oh yeah, I did say that today was a good day. We made it to town after a long try at hitchhiking. I could not believe how many people in pickups would pass right by a little cold child in dirty muddy day glow orange raingear. Finally, some wonderful people with white leather seats stopped for 5 dirty smelly muddy hikers. I wiped off the seats as best as I could with my wet bandanna. The bandanna was the one I had been wearing on my head and it was wet only from the rain. We got to Haven's and it is a great place. Internet access and free shuttles around town. and lots of good times. Oh by the way, if given the chance to eat more burritos, I would be all about eating as many of them as I could, regardless of consequences. That has been the same thing I heard from every other hiker. I am warm and clean, all is well with the world. Take care and we will see you on the trail.