Date: 2012-05-23
From: A. Rufus Morgan Shelter

To: Day 8
Miles today: 1.0

I woke up early this morning feeling super excited for sure. It's funny how easy it is to get up and out of camp on off-trail days. I was up and out of the shelter by 8:30 today, with breakfast at the N.O.C. dominating my thoughts. After days of climbing mountains and getting rained on, it's amazing how thankful you are for just a shred of civilization. The AT crosses over the Nantahala river on a big, sturdy, touristy, footbridge and spits you out right in the middle of the Nantahala Outdoor Center, a rafting/hiking/outfitter/resort/hiker hostel that sits right at the apex of some of the best whitewater this section of the river has to offer. Pretty much a hiker's paradise.    When I crossed the footbridge myself I bee-lined straight to the restaurant for breakfast and ,to my surprise, ran in to Daniel and Samantha there. They and Luke had decided to push on last night and night-hiked all the way to the N.O.C in order to sleep in a bed and grab a shower. I'm proud of them, a little bit of motivation was all that they needed to pick it up a bit. Luke shows up not long after me and, over pancakes, eggs, bacon, and machine-brewed coffee, the 4 of us discuss the prospect of going on a whitewater rafting trip. Good news. The next trip leaves at noon, which gives us plenty of time to get ready, go rafting, and still have tome to run errands the rest of the day. Daniel decides to just get back on-trail because he has some sort of pre-meditated schedule that he 'has to' stick to. So that leaves the three of us, none of whom ave ever been whitewater rafting before. Naturally, we decide to opt for the un-guided rafting experience.    I have just enough time to go grab a bunk in the hiker-hostel section of the resort. This place is amazing by the way. There are multiple restaurants and multiple lodging arrangements to accommodate anyone from a long-term RV'er to a thru-hiker who's just passing through. I'd like to come back here and stay for a bit when I'm not in such a hurry to hike thousands of miles... Anyway I had Luke and Samantha stash their gear in my room and the 3 of us headed down to the rafting shack. After a brief and boring safety meeting (not the stoney kind,) we were on a bus headin' up-river. What fun. We pretty much just hopped out of the bus and set sail without much practice or pre-meditation. One has to respect the free-spirited nature of the thru-hiker I say. We tend to just go for it, under the presumption that maybe one day we might make a mistake and actually learn what our limits are. Today was not one of those days. I like to think that we fared pretty well for some outright newbies at whitewater rafting. We didn't hit too many rocks, never capsized, never fell overboard; it was a lot more fun and a lot less scary that I had imagined it would be. The whole trip took about 2 hours. And when we got to the Nantahala Falls, the climactic (man-made) Class III chute just before the N.O.C. pull-out, we somehow managed to do a 180 and go down the rapid backwards. I think the three of us do much better on Terra Ferma... unforgettable experience none the less.   After pulling back into the N.O.C. we headed straight to the showers where I took my 1st shower since Atlanta. Amazing. Then Samantha and I met up so that we could hitch into town together. I needed to to do a light re-supply and she needed to get iron supplements (I didn't ask what for.) Getting a hitch is like a million times easier when you have a cute girl standing next to you I tell ya. The third car that drove by stopped and gave us a ride all the way to Bryson City. No problem, although it sure felt weird to be travelling more than 3mph again. While we were in the grocery store some kind of freak afternoon thunderstorm blew in. The sky turned black and it started dumping, much harder that anything that hit me while I was hiking all week. Sam decided to go buy us some ponchos for the hitch back while I decided to go buy some beers so we can get drunk tonight. About 10 rainy minutes later Sam had roped us a hitch in the back of a work truck. Not the most comfortable hitch ever, sitting on top of a wet ladder huddled under a dirty tarp travelling 60mph getting pelted by rain, but a ride is a ride. Sam and I agreed to never tell our Moms about that particular hitch and went about our business.    Sam and Luke hiked out in the late afternoon/early evening and there aren't any other thru-hikers here currently, so I spent the rest of the day in quiet reflection. I did laundry, ate the best hamburger I've ever had, got caught up in this here journal, tended to my blisters, and smoked plenty of weed. After nightfall, I heard giggling coming from the public lounge area. I went up to investigate and found two mildly attractive girls sitting there playing cards. Apparently these chicks met on a hiking trip or something like that and come back here once a year to go rafting together. It didn't take much effort for me to easy my way into their little get-together with tales of my hiking adventures. I had a good time playing cards with them and eating their nuts, dried fruits, and candies. Tourists always bring way too much food to the "woods." Neither one of the girls drinks so I was even able to drink all of the alcohol to myself, save for the beers I gave to Sam/Luke before they left. Now I'm sitting here in my room marveling at how foreign it is to have access to electricity and lighting and running water. Today was a much-needed near0.