Date: 2011-04-08
From: Franklin Budget Inn

To: Silar Bald Shelter
Miles today: 3.9
Weather: light rain

(In which I upload pictures and hike very slowly)Shortly before arriving at the Budget Inn I am astonished and overjoyed to see Trilobite walking up the road. I recognize her first by her distinctive turquoise jacket, which when she gets closer turns out not to be the jacket at all but a identically colored shirt. Trilobite hopped off the trail at Deep Gap, 20 or so miles behind me. In the strange non-Euclidean geometry of the trail, towns are like worm holes, temporarily connecting those who are miles apart. We plan to catch up after I have showered and she's resupplied, but our paths don't cross again before I leave in the morning. At our current paces I will see her again once more, briefly, before she passes me by.At the motel I also meet Cargo, who has been hiking the entire trail so far with crutches and a healing torn calf ligament. I empathize with his similar need to keep moving, and hope that neither of us end up regretting our decisions.In Franklin I am able to access a real computer for the first time since I started hiking. In addition to uploading some pictures (viewable here on Trail Journals or at jsstylos dotcom), I am also able to research knee injuries. Everything I read corroborates my father's medical assessment that any treatment I might try is negligible in comparison to rest.Going without easy access to the internet has been an interesting experience. While I do have my Kindle, it is so slow and the mountaintop connections so flaky that, other than trying to check my email every day or so, I treat it mostly as a write-only medium for this journal. Surprisingly, I find that I don't at all miss the various websites and sources of news and entertainment that filled so much of my time previously. What I do miss, however, is the ability to make reasoned, data driven decisions about things that I had previously known nothing about. Trying to decide what actions to take on my knee simply by talking to people seems crude and archaic in comparison to using the internet's instant access to the world's collective knowledge and wisdom. I wonder how many of the people who grew up without computers would understand this, and what it must be like for those even younger, born into a world where the internet is already passe.* * *In the morning I take the 9am shuttle back to the trailhead, driven by Ron Haven himself. Ron owns the Budget Inn and most of the other motels in town as well. As he drive around town, collecting hikers from his various low priced lodgings, employees shout questions to Ron. "How much d'you say she could have cabin number two for?" "One fifty." "Well she say Ron says I could have it for one twenty five, but I say I have to check." "Ron didn't neither. They'll tell you Jesus Christ is a sinner and you don't even have to ask," Ron says.On the rest of the ride Ron talks non-stop, reciting recommendations and warnings about which businesses to patronize for the next several hundred miles of trail. I am the only hiker getting off at Winding Stair Gap, and having plenty of experience with AT purists, offers to drop me off at either a spot on the north side of the highway, where I will be continuing, or a couple hundred feet down at the south side of the highway, where I last got off the trail. I take the south side, in part because highway crossings seem like some of the most interesting parts of the trail, and in part because I have so far walked each foot of the trail and have not much reason to stop now.I wonder how much of a purist I will turn out to be when circumstances conspire to present more compelling reasons to not be. I am not bothered by the thought of blue blazing or other such activities that purists find so offensive, but as of yet they hold no particular appeal for me either.Having been unable to make myself take a zero in Franklin but determined to avoid overuse of the knee, I meander up the trail at an absurd, glacial pace, slower than I have seen anyone else travel on the trail. At first this is maddening, but I seem to have the woods entirely to myself and soon I find it relaxing. I have plenty of time to observe the insects on the ground as they travel at their own, similar speeds. To an observer I must look like that avant-garde Phillip Glass video piece designed primarily to test the patience of its viewers. When I finally get to the first landmark I check my pace, which turns out to be near one half a mile an hour, not including breaks.By the time I get to the shelter it is after 2pm, and I am passed along the blue blaze trail to the shelter by Soho, who along with Rose is was one of a pair of retired women section hikers I met two nights ago. Rose is laid up in Franklin for a few days with an ankle injury, and Soho has ventured on by herself, making the four miles to the shelter in less than half of the time that I took. Not long after I arrive Hot Drinks, a retired Brit now living in Texas, shows up, and it begins to rain. Having avoided rain the whole trip thus far, I am grateful that my pace, slow as it was, was able to get me to the shelter in time to stay dry.