Date: 2019-03-26
From: Spring Mountain Shelter 

To: Little Laurel Shelter
Miles today: 8.6
Weather: light rain

Tuesday Day 37 Spring Mountain Shelter to Little Laurel Shelter. 8.6 miles. Man , you talk about breaking someone in, it stormed all night there were at least three additional tents set up Griffindor and his wife Celeste , Coco and another hiker that I did not meet up the hill. A lot of our gear got wet and I had a puddle of water in my tent from the wind driven rain. There were a lot of bummed out hikers but Snuggs took it all in stride smiling as he took down all of his wet gear. Love his great positive attitude. We proceeded to whip up our breakfast which unfortunately was not that good, Iso lean packs heated with coffee was yuck so I added oatmeal and some thing similar to cracker jacks and it made it tolerable.Snuggs had struck his tent , packed up his gear and was ready to go long before I even thought of taking down my tent as I wanted it to dry a bit. So he took off by himself, fearless I like that. The trail is well marked and I know you all are worried after seeing him in his red pajamas but he is quite the woodsman in-fact he had brought me some of his deer jerky he had made. I didn¢t give it a second thought and looked forward to catching him down the trail.It was 11 am and the fog still had not burned off and my gear was actually getting wetter, so I threw all of my wet stuff into my bag and put it into high gear to catch up with Snuggs. After an hour of almost running I still had not seen the boy and I started wondering how I would explain losing him on our second day. I finally ran into a south bound hiker and he confirmed Snuggs was less than a mile ahead so I poured it on and caught him right before Allen Gap approximately 4 miles . Turns out Snuggs was trying to lose me , pretty cool game of cat and mouse. Boys playing in the woods! There was a home made sign at the bottom of the trail 100 feet to a general store . I don¢t remember reading anything about a store out here in the boonies was this a score or some kind or a trap for hikers?Well we raced down the hill throwing caution to the wind and we saw what looked to be an old abandoned gas station. We took off our packs and entered. Very rustic old wood floors , wood burning stove dark but warm and inviting.The name of the general store is the State Line Store and it was built in the fifties . It basically sits on the TN NC line. The 67 year old man running the store is the son of the original owner and owns the tavern up the road as well as several buildings and properties around this pass. Today was his first day opened this season. Snuggs and I both got hot pockets, chips, Powerade and an ice cream and sat and ate in two old comfy chairs as we listened to the old man¢s stories. In time my eyelids started to feel heavy and I looked over at Snuggs and told him we were in a vortex and needed to leave right away. We bid our farewells, thanked him for his store, hoisted our packs and climbed up the mountain. Indeed this little store was a great find!When we arrived at the shelter we had enough daylight to run a line and hang our wet clothes and tents.We were the first one there but were later joined by,Good Karma, Bumblebee, Space Bean, Hurley and Recon.We all sat around cooked and laughed about the day¢s adventures and then settled in to the shelter.Much needed dry sleep.A much better second day for Snuggs!