Date: 2003-04-02
From: Low Gap Shelter

To: Cheese Factory Site
Miles today: 13.0

Started with a nice easy hike today, gradual uphill the whole way. I was just really starting to miss my friends ("Iron Chef Conneticut" (Jared), "Superman?" (Mark), Heather, "Mr. McGoo" (Jim), "MasterGator" (Mikell) and "Smily" (Wayne) ) when we ran into a southbound section hiker named Daniel who had just spent the night with them at the next shelter which was only 2 miles away! It was great to hear about everyone and to know they are all doing well. I really wanted to pull a long day today in part to get closer to the group with whom I had so much fun and in part to start uping my daily miles. I had planned to get to Franklin by the 6th or 7th but would like to get there by my birthday if I can. (*since I am writing this a week after the fact I can mention that this goal was a bit over zealous). We got to Unicoi Gap around 3:00 about 9.7 miles from where we started and sat down to rest. It was a really hot day and we were tired. We had only been sitting there a few minutes when "Boiler Plate" says "Hey, let's order a pizza!". Being extremely hungry and tired of trail food (already) we thought this was a great idea. (Keep in mind we are in the middle of B F E -for those of you not familiar with the term, BFE=Bum Fuck Egypt-)anyway.. Erika gets on her cell phone, which she has only ever used once before so we need to first give her a short lesson in how to use it, and calls 411 for a pizza delivery place. No luck, there are no delivery places AT ALL in either of the podunk towns Hiawassee (11 miles away) or Helen (10 miles the other direction). During this entire exchange I notice that a local 85+ year old, blaze Orange hunting hat wearing, redneck has taken an interest in our predicament. He offers that there is a Wendy's and tries to think of some other food sources "...over thar in that thar Helen...". We explain nicely that that would be too hard as we were thru hiking and didn't have a car and hitchiking there and back would take too long since we still had to hike to our campsite. He ponders this for a minute before offering ".. weeaalll I kin take one of ya'll down thar and bring ya'll back.." we take him up on this offer simoultaniously and immediately. Being that "Boiler Plate" was the only one with cash, we sent him to pick up the grub. Erika and I relaxed in the parking lot and 35 mins later "Boiler Plate" shows back up with a SHOPPING bag full of Wendy's for us. *sigh* that thar Wendy's was the best I ever had!After porking out on Wendy's we dragged our bloatted bellies up another 1.2 (aprox) miles to the campsite. Since "Boiler Plate" wanted to spend the night in the woods by himself, Erika and I figured we had time to hike an additional 2.3 miles to the Cheese Factory site before dark. We hiked on and before too long we are talking about the crazy people who like to hike at night and how we would be WAY too scared to do that at this point. We agreed that MAYBE later on when we were a bit more comfortable in the woods we would do some night hiking with a group, but would have to be 3 or more people for sure... soon we notice that it is getting dusky and while we are probably really close to the campsite and wouldnt need them, that we should maybe get out our headlamps... you know..."JUST IN CASE"....as you have probably figured out, not too long after that we have not yet arrived to the campsite and it is now completely dark and we are hiking through what in the day time looks like a green tunnel. Now, in the dark... it is the dark ominous tunnel of possible death. We decidely pick up the pace and begin reciting as much Monty Python as we can think of and sreaming it at the top of our lungs... all of this effort, of course... to scare off any wild creatures (i.e. bears) that might be lurking near by and hopefully scare them off before thoughts of a nice evening snack cross their mind. We were just getting into things when we basically stumbled into a bunch of our friends camped and quiet at the cheese factory site, ewps... not the graceful entrance we were hoping for, but luckily we didn't piss anyone off and they were all happy to see us!