Date: 2016-05-20
From: Carvers Gap

To: Iron Mountain Gap
Miles today: 16.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Today was a reverse hike. We started at Carvers gap, a popular place for day hikes, and headed Southbound. It was fantastically beautiful. The gap was located in Roan mountain state park in Tennessee. The place is known for the bald mountain covered in rhododendrons. This is also one of the last areas in Southern Appalatia that is above 6000 feet. Unfortunately, the flowers weren't quite in bloom yet and the weather didn't allow many awesome views. The hike started near a bald spot on the mountain (where no trees grow). It was a mostly downhill day which passed through a Christmas tree forest. Near the top there were remnants of a hotel from the 1900s that straddles the North Carolina / Tennessee line. Legend has it, they painted a line down the middle of the table to let you know which state you were in. The entire state of NC was dry due to prohibition. Apparently, an old sheriff used to enforce the drinking ban right in the dining room! How many marriages would be saved if prohibition was still around? How many needless deaths due to drunk driving would be avoided? Hard to imagine that our country has such a rich and godly history that we actually at one point banned alcohol! The Bible is so wise when it says in Ephesians 5 "So not get drunk on wine, for that is debauchery..." Plus, we wouldn't have root beer without the temperance movement... As he climbed down, he ran into the travel nurses from Alaska again. It was nice to see the familiar faces. Further down the mountain, he ran into Skooch! We last saw her at Sams gap and assumed she was long gone. She told how she had hitched a ride to trail days (the annual hiking festival in Damascas, Va that we missed because of the injury) and then got a ride all the way back to hot springs where she spent several more days and then caught another ride back up to where she had left off. We exchanged numbers just in case she needed a ride now that we had a car. She also gave us an update on Moose's whereabouts... apparently he was several days ahead according to a trail register she had read. Meanwhile, she ran a few errands in Elizabethton and Johnson City. She had read online that there was a coffee shop in downtown Elizabethton and decided to try it. She enjoyed her coffee and lunch there. It was a quiet coffee shop, the perfect place to spend an afternoon. She was able to catch up on the journal a little bit and catch up on some reading as well! It is owned by Christians and is closed on Sunday. She will definitely come back here...hopefully Sherpa will get to experience it as well! Next, she decided to venture to Johnson City and stop at the hotel we spent several nights in. We lost our gorilla pod and thought we might have left it there. A gorilla pod is a phone tripod that you can attach to anything to set up a picture. It's how we take most of our pictures of the two of us! There is not always someone nearby to capture the moment for us. When she got to the hotel and asked them, they brought it right out! She was so excited as it is difficult to find this tripod in stores. They had it labeled "climbing equipment?" She secretly chuckled and thanked them for saving it from two weeks ago. She was so excited to show Sherpa! Stopping at the hotel made her a little late to pick him up, but she is sure he won't mind once he sees the tripod!