Date: 2005-10-25
From: Wine Spring, NC

To: Franklin, NC
Miles today: 8.2
Weather: overcast clouds

8.2 miles todayHaven's Rest MotelFranklin, NC My down sleeping bag was still wet from the clouds blowing through the tent 2 nights ago, so the down was pretty flat. I kept waking up cold and finally at 2:30am, I took the rest of my clothes that I had in my pillow and put them on. That meant that I had to use my food bag for my pillow and that was hard and very lumpy. Food does not make a good pillow. :-))) I slept much better the rest of the night. There was a little over an inch of dry, powdery snow on my tent when I woke up at 7:10am. I'm not sure how cold it was, but that coffee sure tasted great this morning. I tried the strawberry milkshake poptarts that Mrs Gorp sent me in my care package and she was right...they were much better than the older flavors. That's good because now I can change back and forth between my fruit pies and strawberry milkshakes for breakfast. I was glad it was cold enough to have the powdery snow instead of the heavy wet stuff. It was much easier to clean of my tent before packing it up. I'm not sure what time it was when I started walking because my watch was under 4 layers of clothes. It was a beautiful morning to be in the forest. I had to stop and take off one layer pretty quickly, but walked with the rest on. I just walked slower so I wouldn't overheat. I slept at 5290 foot elevation last night and the walk today was mostly downhill. In 2 miles, I was at Wayah Gap at 4100 feet high. I didn't look at my map this morning and forgot I still had Siler Bald to climb which took me back up to 4900 feet. It was a nice climb though. I could see a few leaves falling around me, but I couldn't look up into the sky for falling leaves because of the snow coming down. From Siler's Bald I walked down to Winding Stair Gap at 3700 feet high. There was no snow sticking down there, but it was still falling. I couldn't decide what to do today. I had enough food to hike on by Franklin without stopping, but it would have been late tomorrow when I got to Hiawassi. I would want to stay in Hiawassi until lunch time the next day anyway just so I could eat at Daniel's Steakhouse. I was going to keep on walking, but then realized that I could go into Franklin and spend the day, eat at a buffet and hike out tomorrow morning and still be in Hiawassi by noon or a little later on thursday, so when I got to Winding Stair Gap after only walking 8 miles, I hitched into town. I walked over to the spring just to have some good water for town, then hitched for about 5 minutes before these 2 nice girls in a pickup truck turned around and came back to give me a ride. The only problem was that they were moving some stuff and had no room inside the truck and only a little room in the back. I gladly climbed in back and was surprised that it wasn't a cold ride. I still had my wind gear on and that really does make a difference. They took me right to the motel, where I went in and checked in. I ended up talking with the owner for about half an hour. From what I've heard from a few hikers lately, he is very hiker friendly. This is the first time I've stayed here, but it will now be my stop in Franklin. I dropped off my stuff in the room and walked to the Prime Sirloin Buffet. I thought I would do some real damage there, but ended up only having 2 plates of food and some desert. I went back to the motel, took a shower and washed my clothes, then spent most of the rest of the day catching up on email and journaling. I guess I've been pretty slack on answering some emails lately and I appologize. When I get out my pocketmail at night and write my journal, I always have good intentions of answering email, but I usually end up falling asleep. Anyway, today I am all caught up and it feels good to be organized again. There are a few friends that may be meeting me along the last 106 miles of trail in the next 5 days. That really has me looking forward to the last days of this hike. This trail has become more about the friends I make than the trail itself. It's just a great way of life. I went back to the steakhouse for dinner and had a nice ribeye with lots of fruit and vegetables and 2 bowls of ice cream with lots of chocolate syrup all over it. :-))) My leaf count is still at 41 today. I just couldn't look up into the snow to catch any. Hopefully the folks in the desert southwest, above the tree line in the White Mountains and those in the plains of Nebraska didn't have a very good leaf catching day either. We have friends to the south that may want to get in on this game, so today's new group is going to be the lucky folks in Baja, Mexico. I've had one "retired hiker" sign my guestbook saying that she is in the desert southwest and has 47 leaf catches. I've been able to verify that this was just wishful thinking on a poor Southern Pines, NC girl that is looking for attention. I've reset her count to -26 leaves after applying penalties. So far she's the only leaf catcher that has gone backwards in her count. ;-)))