Date: 2017-05-15
From: Fontana Dam

To: Fontana Dam
Miles today: 0.0

Zero Monday, May 15, 2017 Fontana Dam Lodge (165.9)Weather: Sunny, pleasant, 60s to 70sDinner: TBDHikers: Flash, No Stress, The Professor, and a bunch more staying at the lodge tonightWhat a nice place to take a zero. This actually feels like a vacation. Fontana Dam is situated in adjacent to the Smokies (where I'm headed tomorrow) and the Tail of the Dragon. I was told that there is a party of little Nissan sports car aficionados checking in here tonight. The Tail of the Dragon consists of 328 curves in 11 miles and this is a popular destination for sports cars and crotch rocket riders alike. A few years ago we inadvertently discovered the Tail of the Dragon while we were attempt to reach the Blue Ridge Parkway. Until I checked out the room directory, I hadn't realized I had been in this area before. So that¢s cool. Following a single line using AWOL¢s guidebook doesn't give you a sense of place. I was tickled to find conditioner on the bathroom counter next to the shampoo and the three bars of soap options. And¢lotion?! Such bounty. While we did have towels, exactly two, plastic-mattress entombed Haven Budget Inn only had a single thin bar of soap, packets of shampoo and a paper bath mat. Maybe that is why the extra plastic protection is needed¢there¢s barely the amenities available to clean up. Or at least that is what I will choose to believe, but see what an extra thirty bucks gets you here? Even cheaper if I had shared the room, but after two weeks of sharing bunkhouses, shelters and campsites, I¢m ready for a night alone.The lodge/resort is very hiker-friendly. I was able to check in at 9 a.m., pick up my mail drop and call my mom for a belated mother's day talk¢doing so before laundry while refraining myself from sitting upon the clean sun-bleached linens of the nap-seducing bed decked out with four pillows, none of which require inflating. But chores first before naps! I did laundry wearing nothing but my rain kilt and the one long sleeve sleeping shirt I only wore briefly (and thus it's still clean) since my last real laundry day back in Georgia. Let¢s just say that this is not a good look. The nice thing about hostels is that they often provide loaner clothes so you aren't reduced to sitting in front of a laundry mostly in rain gear watching a guy polish his little yellow Nissan sports car across the parking lot.However, I am grateful that there are few people around, and there was a little area in the corner, half behind the washing machines and out of view of the picture window where I was able to change out of everything I was wearing. I will soon become respectable once again. Not to mention clean. When I'm not this desperate for laundered clothes, but am visiting town, I will just walk into a shower at the place I'm staying with all my clothes on and using shampoo, stomp on them a bit in a classic wine-making style. This is enough to get by until I¢m ready to do a full load using the more modern and thorough mechanical method, automation rendering the work of washer women obsolete. And by full load, I mean the clothes I¢m wearing, my sleeping/dry change of clothes, one pair of extra socks and undies and maybe the sleeping bag liner. While waiting for the drying to be done, a few hikers I met and passed yesterday have wandered into the village and are staying here tonight as well. Made some loose plans for dinner. Laundry completed, I finished sorting my food (yeah! One pot taco dinner is back!), picked up a few bars at the General Store, sat on the bed icing my still slightly swollen ankle, wrote few postcards and am now ready for that nap.