Date: 2019-04-10
From: Deep Gap

To: Coleman Gap
Miles today: 7.0
Weather: few clouds

April 10 (Day 18): Today was a perfect day!! We woke up at 6:30am in the sleazy hotel (Sapphire Inn). Boy was it foggy out. We needed to be out at hotel office by 7:15 to catch the van from First Baptist Church in Franklin. They drove us and a group of other hikers to their church and warmly welcomed us into their community hall. There they served us all-we-could-eat giant pancakes, bacon, fruit, and coffee cake. Orange juice, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate to drink. They took our picture and gave us a note card to write home. They printed out our picture, we put it with our addressed envelope and they covered mailing. Pebbles is from Luxombourg and they told her they would mail hers too. They mailed letters all over the world. We ate to bursting, they said a prayer over us for safe travels, and then they gave us a ride back to our hotel. It was awesome! Talk about trail magic!We got back to the hotel and packed up, except for Diesel. She was going to call the Microtel Inn and move there. We did not want her staying at this sketchy place alone even with Nash. We had called Three Eagles, a nearby outfitter and resupply place to find out when they opened and they were open now and they came and picked us up!We bought some additional tent stakes, Germ-X, and neoprene gloves (for the Smokey Mtns). They gave us a free t-shirts for spending $100.Mary, our favorite shuttle driver, picked us up at Three Eagles and took us back to Deep Gap. By 12:30 we were back on the trail.The climb was gentle with lots of switchbacks. Spring is definitely coming with the beautiful little yellow flowers and purple flowers that line the trail.And speaking of the trail, the trails so far in NC, have been beautiful. Well maintained and the blazes look newly painted and are frequent. No guessing if you are on the AT.After reaching the summit, the downhill trek was even more wonderful! We went through an area of trees that were probably no higher than 10-12 ft tall, but they were bent over and gnarly. It was almost spooky looking, even in the day. I thought it would be the perfect place to hold a Halloween event. (Found out late that the are wild rhodedendrons.)Some of the trail was muddy. All of it was rocky with tons of tree roots to navigate. We rock-hopped over lots of streams. Sometimes the stream was the trail!We got to Beech Gap campsite and decided to press on a little farther because the day was beautiful. We found Coleman campsite and had it all to ourselves. We did 7.0 miles today. We made dinner and tried very hard to get a campfire going but the wood and leaves we're too wet, so we just sat on the logs around the fire pit and talked. Having Diesel and Nash there would have made it complete. The little flying bugs or gnats were annoying so I pulled out my sun hat which has a net rolled up in the crown. I unrolled it and immediately felt like a beekeeper, but I was bug-free! Then I tried to eat a peanut M&M (Yes! Some things are worth the extra weight!) and got a mouth full of netting.As I walked along the trail today I thought how I wished I could film all this beauty and send it to all my family and friends. Pictures or words seem so inadequate in trying to describe it all. You just have to see it. One of my goals for this trip was to learn to live in the moment. See and enjoy what was happening right now and not be planning what I needed to do next. Today I did that.Perfect day.