Date: 2014-04-30
From: Hot Springs

To: Little Laurel Shelter
Miles today: 19.6
Weather: moderate rain

Last night, over beers at the tavern in Hot Springs, the two Floridians, Matt and Isiah, officially assumed their trail names, Flatlander and The Kid, respectively. Almost all thru-hikers go by pseudonyms while on the trail, and thru-hikers who have no trail names when they start are often assigned them by their fellow hikers.Since the Gang of Five had hiked 13 miles yesterday to reach Hot Springs, they decided to zero there today. After my 3-mile hike into town and yesterday's hot tub, I felt rejuvenated and decided to move on. I had breakfast with the Gang at the Smoky Mountain Diner and watched Flatlander inhale the skillet platter in half the time it took me yesterday. I chose to eat lighter, as I didn't want to risk loosing breakfast on the steep climb out of the valley.There were just two shelter options for today, at 11 or 19 miles. With a rather late 10:30 am start, I was thinking I might stop at the first shelter, but at 1:00 pm, six miles into the day's hike, I was given a reason to shoot for the second. Nailed to a tree at Tanyard Gap was a sheet of paper indicating that on May 1, 2014 from 10:00-3:00 the Appalachian Trail Angels would be providing magic at Sam's Gap in the form of hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, and drinks. I quickly consulted my map and was disappointed to find that Sam's Gap was 38 miles away, much too far to walk in the next 26 hours. There simply wasn't enough daylight between now and then. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to get to those burgers and dogs. So I decided to hike the 19 miles, and if the rain that's currently falling stops by 3:00 am, I'll wake up and night hike until dawn in an attempt to cover the 24 miles from Little Laurel shelter, where I'm currently tenting, to Sam's Gap before 3:00 pm. And hopefully they won't have run out of food should I make it.Late this afternoon, I stopped at Mom's, a dilapidated store that sits on the NC/TN border where the AT crosses a state highway. The place caters to thru-hikers, because nobody in a car would consider pulling over at such a run-down establishment. Upon entering, I was met by a thick fog of cigarette smoke coming from the woman behind the counter. Half the store was filled with junk food: sodas, ice cream, candy bars, and cookies, exactly what the typical thru-hiker is looking for. The other half was filled with plain old junk: a rusty refrigerator, old car tires, and discarded lawn ornaments. I bought two sodas and an Eskimo Pie and asked the woman whether it would be ok to sit in the chair by the window, admitting that I was a bit sweaty. She said it was fine, which was no surprise to me given the condition of the chair and store in general.We struck up a conversation, and I couldn't help but ask whether she was the mom referred to by the store's name. She said no, that it was her mother-in-law, who used to run the store until she died a number of years ago. The store subsequently closed and fell into disrepair. She and her husband decided to reopen it a few years back during thru-hiking season, March through October, and named it in honor of her husband's mother.She did offer that she was a mom, too, and has three kids, a 19-year-old son living locally, a daughter in Texas with a 3-year-old child, and a son who is a marine stationed in Okinawa, whom she was obviously quite proud of. She said she doesn't see her grandchild much, except on the computer. I asked if she was born and raised locally, and she said she came from down the road in the foothills of Tennessee. By the end of our conversation, I realized the scope of her world was quite limited and probably didn't extend as far as the trail I've been walking on.