Date: 2002-04-15
To: Goodbye, cruel trail!
Miles today: 0.0

Goodbye, mud and stinky clothes! Shrek (yay) and I were the last ones to leave the shelter, thanx to my earplugs and pulling my hat over my eyes. When I woke up the herd was half done rattling, clanging and zipping. I took 2 big bandaids to the privy to put on my thighs and YIKES I couldn't believe the excoriation. Fire red and even into my groin. Putting the bandaids on was like sticking my thumb into a hole in Hoover Dam, but I put them on the most sore spots. The am hike was mostly downhill. NC does not maintain their trails as nicely as GA. I thought (psychologically, anyways) once I got out of GA, things would be easier (I've been 'training' for two weeks now!). Instead, there are hardly any runoffs (places where they've shored up the trail so the water goes down the mtn, not down the trail) and they don't bother taking a chainsaw to the deadfalls on the trail. In one place there was a huge deadfall, too high to climb over, so the trail went uphill sharply to get around it. I was not impressed. There were springs that went 15-20 feet down the trail before going on over - you had to slosh through each one. In GA they made rock runoffs, so you just step over the little stream, not slosh through it. In many places, usually near a stand of rhododendrons, the mud would be 3-4" deep and nearly suck your boots off. It got really bad when the trail sloped downhill and it was full of this slippery black mud. At times it was simply impassable - I had to walk in the forest flora right next to it. It was TREACHEROUS. I'm surprised more people aren't hurt on the trail. I bumped into a sobo dayhiker who told me to be careful, and he had left the parking lot 30 minutes ago and it would be all downhill for me. There were lots of shoebox-sized rocks that twisted and contorted my poor sore feet and knees painfully. Also, I had eaten a Milky Way bar with my bagel for breakfast and it went right through me. I had to climb down into some rhododendrons and damnnear couldn't get back up. About an hour later, I came to the parking lot. There were three vehicles there, and I thought "I've got three chances to get out of here". I sat down and made myself comfy on the curb. I was only there a few minutes when a shaggy guy with braids, two knee braces and two poles came out and had lunch. I had seen him before. Then Shrek came out 'yay'. Then a pickup truck pulls up, a woman with a brace on her ankle gets out and starts gearing up. She had severely sprained her ankle on the rocks I had just come over and was getting back on the trail. The driver, George, got out and Shrek started chatting with him, so I stood up and asked him if there is a town nearby. He said 'yes, Franklin', and he was going back that way. He reluctantly agreed to give me a ride - I said "Thank you, I know you didn't exactly volunteer". He was super nice, and dropped me off right at the hotel, after we stopped twice to ask directions - once at the State Trooper's office and once from a guy getting into his pickup in front of a store. I checked in for two nights and called Nelius first thing. He was bringing his mother from the hospital - her leg had swollen and she's getting daily IV medications all week. He's arranging for his neighbors to take her to the appointments and should be here late Tuesday to get me (Yay!). I told him not to tell mom and dad, so I can surprise them.First thing I wanted to do was laundry, but I have nothing clean to put on, and walking with these shorts was painful - the bandaids curled up and were getting stuck to my shorts and each other. So I took a shower and put on my long john bottoms, my stinky shirt, and went to the grocery store for some bread, lunchmeat, bananas, BBQ potato chips, Little Debbies, salad, my favorite dressing, and a quart of OJ. I pigged out, had a nap, then walked the 1 1/2 miles each way to K-Mart in my flip-flops to buy a pretty yellow short & top. I found a dollar bill in the grass on the way back. Later I got hungry for Ramen noodles and fired up my stove on the toilet tank. Most thankful for: hot water and a soft bed - NO DIRT!