Date: 2012-05-29
From: Mountain Harbour B&B, Roan Mountain, TN

To: Mountain Harbour B&B, Roan Mountain, TN
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: broken clouds

Day 34: I guess you could call this our third zero day on this hike...but all the days from here on will be "zero" days until next May. We awoke at our usual time of 6:30am...I wonder how long it will take to drift back to the sleep patterns we had before we started this hike? For a change we didn't have to jump up and start packing. We finally rolled out of bed, dressed and wandered downstairs for coffee an OJ at 7:15am while we smelled delicious aromas coming from the kitchen. The word on the trail was this hostel had the best breakfast (hikers staying in the hostel-portion of the property can join the B&B guests for breakfast for an additional fee). At 7:30am breakfast was served and what a spread!!...eggs, sausage, potatoes, pancakes, fresh fruit and several kinds of homemade pastries. Boy was it good...Spider even had seconds!! We said goodbye to the other hikers after breakfast as they all headed back to the trail. We have some mixed emotions...glad to be finished, but know we will miss the simplicity of life and social interactions on the trail. We spent most of the day relaxing on the veranda reading and talking to hikers as they began to trickle in off the trail. All have opted for the hostel so we may have the B&B to ourselves tonight. We tore ourselves away from lounging long enough to repack our backpacks for the flight home tomorrow...including our freshly laundered clothes that appeared by our door this morning!!As with previous zero days, it's time to take an assessment of how our bodies are holding up. We both have probably lost some weight...we will know for sure when we get home and step on our scales. We both show a little more muscles in our legs and arms (yes arms...because we use trekking poles to help pull us up the hill and to put the brakes on going down the hill). We still don't have any blisters on our feet but new callouses are showing up on our feet and hands. However an interesting conclusion we came to this morning is that we are getting off the trail at about the right time for our bodies. The first couple of weeks felt like we were getting in shape for the trail i. e. getting our "trail legs". The next couple of weeks was about taking advantage of those trail legs i. e. 14-18 mile days. But the last several days it has felt like our bodies didn't bounce back as much each morning. We are wondering if we have drained our reserves??...if so, it makes us admire the hikers, especially those our age, that hike the whole 2150 miles of the AT. Even so we enjoyed our hike. There is a simplicity in life when all you have to do is get from Point A to Point B...there might be a mountain or a rainstorm that complicates it a little, but it's still pretty simple. The other thing hiking gives us is an appreciation for some of the things we have in everyday life that we often take for granted: a chair, a newspaper, steak on the BBQ, a toilet...and today especially, a roof over our heads...because it rained on and off all day!! For once we timed it right!!At 5pm we were shuttled to the town of Roan Mountain for another sumptuous dinner at Bob's Dairyland. Spider toned it down this time and had a regular BBQ pork sandwich with his milkshake. ET had a ham and cheese sandwich with her milkshake. It rained most of the time we were eating!! Upon returning we decided to soak out a month of grime off our bodies in the Jacuzzi tub in our room...we almost feel civilized again!!Tomorrow we make the long trip back to the San Francisco Bay Area. It will be good to get home.