Date: 2006-04-03
From: No Business Knob

To: Erwin, Tennessee
Miles today: 6.3

We are at Miss Janet's House and it is an awesome time.   Got here around noon today and haven't stopped yet.When we woke up this morning, it was pouring rain. All I could think of was "no, it's supposed to stop raining by morning! It's always supposed to stop by morning!" And, we all woke up slowly, one by one, reluctant to get out of our sleeping bags, all content to just stare out at the mess of rain outside the shelter.If we had had any more than 6 miles to do it would have been extremely hard to get up today. But, Erwin awaited! Two blueberry poptarts got me going and the rain seemed to loosen up for us, actually stopping all together before we even stepped foot on the trail.(Side note: Blueberry is my new favorite flavor out here on the trail.)After last night's crazy winds the trail was a bit of a mess. Trees were down everywhere and it made for an adventurous morning, especially poor little Cassidy who kept having to belly crawl under trees because they were too high for her to jump over.Once we got the climbs over with, it was a good chunk of down hill into Erwin, but we got an awesome view of the river and the town. I fell very gracefully on a wet root and landed perfectly in sitting position against a tree. Bliss, Snake and Swansons had a good time with that one! That's 7 for me and 2 for Swansons. Though, I am sure he will catch up.Considering we did our first twenty yesterday, I felt pretty great. My body is fully in hiking mode now and climbing those mountains is getting almost as easy as going down them...Almost...We came out of the woods and right smack into a waiting Miss Janet who picked us up, along with Bushwacker.Miss Janet dropped us off at her house telling us to drop our bags on the porch and go get us some giant burgers. She was packed but told us not to worry, sleeping accommodations would be figured out later. We were too hungry to worry anyway.Miss Janet's House is great and everyone was there. As soon as we stepped foot on the porch, No Worries, Stinky and Orangutan appeared. It was good to see familiar faces. A bunch of us walked down to the Elms where they make colossal burgers. I mean, these are rediculously huge burgers. Even the regular burgers are huge.   So, of course, an eating fest took place.Swansons and Snake, both got one of the down town burgers which were at least 3 lbs. and the size of their heads. Swansons ate his in under 15 minutes, plus a plate of fries and 4 Dr. Peppers and 3 cups of coffee. We watched in complete awe! It was truly incredible! I could only undertake a bacon double cheeseburger and fries...which was not the biggest burger on the menu but was the biggest burger I have ever had. This place did not take burgers lightly.After that we all headed down to Sonic for ice cream, then back to Miss Janet's for showers and laundry. None of us had showered in 5 days, but as you can tell, food took presidents...Naturally...Once we were all clean, it was time for all our butts to get shuttled around town. Outfitters, where I finally gave in and bought a new filter, Chinese buffet, where we all had a minimum of 4 plates of food and of course, Walmart for resupply, or goofing off. Swansons and I bought massive amounts of food for this next stretch, a little scary. Stinky bought a women's long skirt to hike in, and it actually looks quite nice on him. All in all it was a productive day. Miss Janet tried to get us to have sing-a-longs on the ride back, which sort of worked...but really was just a bunch of weird thru-hikers remembering bits and pieces of wierder songs...i.e. Tiny Dancer.On a sad note tonight, Bliss and Chunky, oh, and little Cassidy had to leave us to go back to Virginia. They really made our week awesome and we are already missing them. It sucks that they are moving so far away. But we are definitely getting out there to see them....hopefully after climbing a certain mountain in Maine.On a brighter note, Miss Janet is making sausage gravy and biscuits for breakfast! And we are slackpacking 19 miles tomorrow so that we can spend one more night at this crazy place. One night was just not enough!