Date: 2009-06-07
From: Old Woods Road 3 mi before Walnut Mtn Shelter

To: Elmer's, Hot Springs, NC
Miles today: 16.1
Weather: broken clouds

The other 2 guys beat me onto the trail but it was a pretty fast pack because i have very little food since i am going into Hot Springs to resupply today. It is a nice hike. I taped up one toe, only on the top side. There is some tape barely on the bottom. This does not work out well because all of my hot spots hurt most of the day. Then there is that tape that just feels like a piece of gravel under my toe all day. It causes a small blister. I caught with one of the 2 guys because they separated slightly. We have a quick chat. Then the guy i was hiking and talking with stops to make sure the other guy is good on water and stuff. I pass him and go on down the hill running most of the way since it felt better on the feet and joints to me. Then it went back up hill unexpectedly. I take a break like 1/2 way up the hill to have lunch and finish off my food since once i am in town i knew i wouldn't be eating it. Everyone catches up to me but i pass them all again. I run into the guys talking to a couple out on a short backpacking trip with there dog. The dog hates people that wear hats so you have to take off your hat and then he becomes friendly with you after a while. He was a short furred boxer, sadly not enjoyable to pet. I just relaxed listening to their conversation. They mainly explained an autism awareness and money raising trail thing. They said to Google that and it links you to their blog about the journey and their cause or something along that line. Matt and Josh are the guys names. Elmer's hostel in Hot Springs was cool. It had every type of book, maybe even weighted a little on Eastern religion/philosophy. There were cool pictures of the old fashion styling of the house. It was a cool setup. He had a little farm field area, chickens,ducks and another farm field off poperty i think where he has some bamboo growing. I kept expecting that Matt and Josh would be through. They were 2 secs behind because i could hear them on the switchbacks right behind me entering town. I go out to check where they are and i see their pack at the diner across the street. I join them and order chicken liver, corn, cornbread, and cole slaw (just to try something new). i get the food. The liver is deep fried and the corn is too. The liver pretty much tasted like a tougher chicken tender. The cornbread was weird to me, just dry with little flavor. That was wacky and butter did not help much. Still i ate too much and i didn't eat enough cole slaw, sadly. After trying to make room for 5-10 mins, I wrap the corn nugget, liver and bread up in the napkin and put it in my bag containing pocketmail and guide book and leave.I head back to Elmer's, full and tired. It is only like 3 pm so i lay in bed waiting for a shower and thinking of what has to happen for the rest of the day. The shower becomes open within like 5 mins and i ask if it is my turn since Matt just got out and Josh was next but he was busy enough reading to let me go.I go into the bathroom and see no towel. I ask matt where the towels are and he says the rack at the end of your bed. I go in and sit on the pot reading the shower procedure. Then I turn on the shower and take off the bandages. I am like, Oh, I wasn't excepting it to look like that. I turn off the shower and get a 2nd opinion from josh since he said he had dealt with wounds before. He says it looks bad and I need to do something about it but take a shower first. It would not hurt to clean it and test for puss coming out of it. I forget if this is before or after the shower. I ask Elmer if the medical clinic is open, but it is Sunday so he says it is closed. He says to get some peroxide or alcohol for it. I take a shower and spend plenty of time messing with the would but don't get anything to come out of it. Really, just flakes of flesh trying to seal it up. So I finish the shower and just put my trail clothes on again even though I was prepare for throwing laundry rain clothes on. The shirt is dirty though so I cover the wound temporarily with toilet paper. The paper just gets stuck on the wound and I try to get it off but it does not come. People say just get the peroxide and the bubbling will take it off. I go across the street to the dollar general and blunder to the medical stuff. I ask the owner which he preferred, alcohol or peroxide. He says he likes to do peroxide, then alcohol and then bandage on his cuts. The 16 oz peroxide is 60 cents while the alcohol is a dollar. There is a fellow hiker in the store so I ask her opinion. She says, go with only peroxide and throw the rest of it in the hiker box. It's cheap enough to just buy the bottle and don't ask Elmer. But since it is only 60 cents I do not want to just buy that so I look around the store for a long while planning my resupply. Then I leave to organize what I want to buy and go back at like 8 pm after a log pleasant chat with Wobbler who has similar trail experience to me and a simpler time frame and mind set towards the trail than me. I finish shopping at 9 on the dot when the store closes even though they were not kicking me out. I eat my left over dinner stuff. The cats that were nearby were wanting the liver real bad. Luckily they are nice cats. I organize my food and pack to bring it inside to my room finally, but it is all a mess. I drop pack in the room and ask for a wash rag. I start messing with the wound and like 10 mins later roommate matt comes in. He says, you are doing good but you should reopen it to make sure that there's nothing bad hiding under the scab. He goes into josh's room next door to get some q-tips from their med kit. I soak a q-tip in peroxide and start digging at the scab. I get some blood on the tip so matt, who is watching, picks up the bottle and saves some time by pouring peroxide on the wound for me. It bubble and then I just watch it a bit. Then we pour on more. Then watch it a bit and then just decide it is broke open. I guess I should dig in there some more to make sure there is no place for infection to hide. Then I pour more peroxide on and matt says it is good. Then I start messing with the other wounds so I am messing with the wounds until like 11 pm. I spent like an hour messing with the wounds. Matt went to bed signifying time to wrap it up even though he can sleep through anything. I get in bed and I am about to fall asleep when I hear a noise in the room. I figure that it is just matt getting a drink but it persists and my ears locate it being on the other side of my bed. I lean over to look and it is a cat messing with the bag with the guide book and pocket mail which had the liver in it for the evening. I grab it and bring it up on the bed so the cat gives up and leaves. I think it went out the window but I was confused because I couldn't tell if there was a screen. Like 2 mins later I hear it reenter and go under my bed so I grab the bag closer and it hops up. I grab at the bag so it just walks over me, hops down and goes out the window again. Another 2 mins he enters again so this time I try to get matt involved because it is too bazaar of an event, but he is fast asleep. I say his name like 5 time and he moans finally, so I explain the situation even though I can tell he is back a sleep. The cat leaves again and stays out since the bag is right against me now and there is no liver. A minute later a train comes through town and makes a noise for a long while. I am pretty much wired from all these experience so I go over and grab a book of quotes from Buddha. I am too tired to read well and matt is tossing and turning a ton so I turn off the light after 15 mins even though matt never woke up. I fall asleep finally and then matt wakes up in the middle of the night with bad acid reflux which he has most of the time. I am used to waking on the trail in the middle of the night so it does not bother me at all. The next section of sleep is good and I sleep until 7:40.