Date: 2017-05-12
From: Mountain Harbour B&B

To: Roan Mountain B&B
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: moderate rain

From Fatboy:I was awake a little after 0600 and made coffee for us in our room.  I slept very well and remembered to be grateful for a warm, dry, bed.  It was already raining.  It's important for me to keep this perspective every day.  The weather forecast was 100% chance of rain with accumulation of 3/4 to 1 inch and temperatures in the 50's.  Too wet and too cold to be comfortable for me so we decided to spend another day off trail.  We hated to leave our lodging at Mountain Harbour Bed and Breakfast but our room wasn't available any longer and we decided it would be fun to experience a different setting anyway.  Ginger arranged for our pickup at the Route 19E road crossing and we were on our way.  As we began hiking toward our rendezvous site, I became aware that my feet and legs hadn't recovered fully from the rush down the mountain that we completed to reach Carver's Gap.  That was another really good reason to rest indoors today and stay warm and dry.  We were picked up by Ann of Roan Mountain Bed and Breakfast and stopped at a little local grocery store for lunch stuff before being delivered to our lodging.  The lady at the register of the grocery told me how the Dollar Store chains were destroying her business because there were so many of them saturating the local area.  I guess it's probably like what happened to many small businesses in these areas when Wal-Mart entered the competition.  I like a bargain as much as anyone but sometimes I forget the real impact of spending patterns on local economies.  It continued to rain so we decided to take a nap.  That was a great choice and I slept soundly for about an hour.  Maybe I will recover enough to feel strong on the trail tomorrow.  We got takeout dinner and there were several other hikers who arrived during the evening.  They were wet and muddy and I felt kind of guilty for staying warm and dry.  That guilt only lasted a moment as they didn't seem to harbor any resentment or seek any pity.  It was a good evening and we made plans to be shuttled back to Carver's Gap in the morning after breakfast.  It was another beautiful day with my best friend.From Ginger:I so appreciate how Nathan and I are able to work out our plans together. We spend a lot of time off the trail and on the trail, and I feel certain that by the end of this journey, we'll have found a place we want to move to -- and places we want to revisit. We're thoroughly enjoying what these small towns and people have to offer. Really, only the population is small. They are big in so many other ways: like, big-hearted. We overheard Ann helping locate other options for hikers since her place was full; she swerved roadside to pick up a hiker walking to another hostel with groceries.Roan Mountain is actually Ann's family's house, built on their land in the 1940s. You can see some of the original exterior logs on the outside. The floors look like my place on Hoffman Street. In the common area, she and her husband have displayed black and white photos of the family and house through the years. It still shocks me that folks open their HOMES to strangers and trust us with their personal history. It feels like such a privilege. We went to dinner at a local spot with a wood-fired oven and great salads. (And Nathan had a macaroon he raved about.) It was a converted barn.