Date: 2016-04-07
From: Roaring Fork Shelter

To: Erwin TN
Miles today: 86.4
Weather: light rain

Roaring Fork Shelter to Erwin TN4/9/16-4/10/16   Left Roaring Fork Shelter today. Pretty unremarkable day, cold and windy. Then we came to Garenflo Gap where we met up with some great trail magi being given out by Buzz and Tandem, a father-daughter team who thru hiked in 2014. They came up from the Atlanta area to this little dirt road in the mountains to hand out stuff to hikers and being former thru hikers, they knew just what to bring...soda, beer, hot dogs, chips, Little Debbie and other stuff high in sugar and calories. After that it was a quick 6.5 miles to Hot Springs NC and the hostel called Laughing Heart Lodge. This is also where we took our first zero day, on the 10th. Hot Springs is a small town but the trail runs right down the main road through town so the town is very hiker-friendly. Our first order of business after getting settled in at the hostel was to go downtown to the laundry mat and do our laundry. So we get there and put our clothes and soap and money in the washing machine and push the money in and what do you suppose happens? That's right, exactly nothing! This being an unattended laundry mat, I would have called the phone number on the wall except that there is no ATT phone service in Hot Springs. So I decide to wander around town until I can find a friendly business that is open so I can borrow their phone and call the number. Fortunately there was one right across the street, except when I got there I discovered I had only written down part of the phone number. That was okay though because the nice lady at the business I was at said "that's alright, you don't need to call the number. Just go down the street to Tobacco Road (a convenience store) and talk to whoever is there, they also own the laundry mat". So I walk about a block to Tobacco Road and go inside to explain my plight to the nice older gentleman behind the counter. He says to wait a few minutes until his daughter gets back and he'll go right down to the laundry mat and take a look. I thank him profusely and start to walk out the door and he says "get right in to that pickup there" and within a couple of minutes we're on our way back to the laundry and I feel just like one of the locals riding down Main Street in this old beat up pickup truck. It was great! When we get to the laundry the guy goes in and flips a switch in the circuit breaker box, and we're back in business! Then the owner sits a spell and chats with Kelly and I and then goes about his business. I though the whole experience was rather amusing, and was impressed by the friendliness of the people.    While our laundry was in, we went to a local tavern called Spring Creek Tavern and had some really good burgers and I had a good local beer. Keep in mind that we were both dressed in just our rain gear because everything else was in the laundry. Rain gear alone doesn't do much to keep you warm in a chilly breeze!   Next day, our zero day, was pretty laid back. We dried out our tents(Kelly's dried while she napped in it) and did our resupply shopping. Later we went to dinner at the same tavern with Food Bag, Raudir, Candyman, Jimminy Cricket and Spiderman. The buffalo chicken sandwich was even better than the hamburger the night before. Then back to the hostel for one more night of sleeping in a real bed before hitting the trail again tomorrow. 4/11/16   Left Hot Springs today with some nice views back over town and over the French Broad River, which we hiked alongside for a while. We hiked with Candyman, who was doing some slack packing, for a while then we caught up with Jimminy Cricket who was headed to the same hostel we were, so we stayed together for the rest of the day. When we got to the hostel we found out it was closed so we had to continue on to the next usable tent sites. Fortunately that wasn't too far. 4/12/16   Woke up to rain this morning, or maybe I should say I got up to rain this morning, since I was already awake due to dogs barking nonstop all night at a nearby house. We hiked all day in the rain but it finally cleared at the end of the day so we were able to get most of our stuff dried out when we got to Flint Mountain shelter. 4/13/16   Flint Mountain Shelter to Low Gap tent sites. 4/14/16   A 20.8 mile day today so we could make it from Low Gap to Erwin, TN where we would stay at Uncle Johnny's Hiker Hostel. High mileage days are not too bad if the terrain isn't too difficult but today we went from 4300 feet down to 1673 feet with a lot of ups and downs along the way and I was pretty beat by the end of the day!