Date: 2004-05-03
From: No Business Shelter

To: Uncle Johnny's
Miles today: 6.3
Weather: overcast clouds

I got up early today and was at Uncle Johnny's hostel by 10am. I wanted to stay at Ms Janet's because I've heard so many good things about it, and I've heard bad things about Uncle Johnny's, but in the end I called Ms Janet and she wasn't sure there would be room there. They were still having breakfast, and she would only know after. I wanted to get my laundry done and go into town, so I didn't want to wait. I settled for Uncle Johnny's, although I must say Hillbilly (the guy running the hostel) is hardly the friendliest guy. But it was OK. So I gave my clothes to be washed, and then I took a long hot shower. Heaven!Now clean, I wanted to go to town so me and Mapmaker set out to hitch a ride. It turned out we didn't have to hitch, we just caught a ride with Ms Janet who was coming to drop off some hikers and pick up Fly and Dreamcatcher. Among the hikers she dropped off was Eyal, now called Pita Man. I hadn't seen him since Fontana Dam. Ms Janet was super nice, gave us a ride with no problem even though we weren't staying at her place. I got to see the infamous Ms Janet's House, it was pretty crazy in there, tons of people. Achilles was there, I never thought I'd catch him but he'd taken a zero in Erwin. He said he may be slowing down a bit so maybe I'll catch up later, he was heading out today.Mapmaker and I then headed to town to eat. I was freezing my ass off because I had given all my stuff to wash, so I had no pants and no fleece sweater, only my rain jacket. I had been foolishly hoping that it would get warmer. It didn't. We hit the buffet at Pizza Hut and as always I ate too much. I had 10 slices of pizza, 2 plates of pasta, 2 breadsticks, 2 slices of dessert pizza, and some peaches and pears. Hmmmmmm. Mapmaker was waiting for me to get done for a good 20 minutes! We then spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around the stores (it was too cold for me to want to walk around) and we also re-supplied at the supermarket. We caught a ride back with the hostel shuttle at 5:30pm. The rest of the day was organizing gear and watching movies. We saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Wayne's World, although I slept through the latter.I also met other hikers at the hostel. Sarge was the first black hiker I met, which says something about ethnic/racial diversity on the trail. Then again, it's diverse in every other aspect. Sarge had already thru-hiked, so he was just hanging out in trail towns this year. Then there was Gadget who got his trail name because he had lots of gadgets (duh). He was coming up with yet another little ingenious thing to be able to pump water into his hydration pack without having to take his pack off, brilliant stuff! And it worked, of course. Finally, there was Mapmaker, he's the one I hung out with the most. He really does make maps, he studied Cartography. We talked a bunch throughout the day.I'm not sure how much I'll walk tomorrow, but I'd love to reach Damascus in 7 days. So I'll have to do some 20 mile days for that. I'll see. I have one nagging blister on my left heel that I'll deal with tomorrow morning.