Date: 2005-10-27
From: Bly Gap, NC

To: Young Lick Knob, GA
Miles today: 17.2

17.2 miles todayYoung Lick Knob, Ga.I'm in Georgia!!! I slept better last night than I have in a while. It was probably in the mid 20's again, but my down sleeping bag was completely dry and I slept nice and warm. :-))) I woke up once at 4am, checked my watch and fell asleep again until 6am. I just layed in my bag thinking for about half an hour about how quickly this hike is coming to an end. It seems like it was just last week when I ran into Moosie in Maine and I felt sorry for him because his hike was almost over and I still had a long way to go.Now mine is almost over too. :-((( I stuck my stove outside the tent and got my coffee started, then ate 2 fried pies for breakfast. I wasn't in any hurry at all to get started because I had just about 8 miles to Dick's Creek Gap where I thought I might see Corsican at noon. I didn't get to talk to him, just left a message, so I wasn't sure whether he'd be able to make it or not. I finally packed up and filled one water bottle at the spring there at Bly Gap and was walking at 8am. At about 8:03, I crossed the border from NC into Georgia and got to say hello to Pamela Kay. I had a bunch of little 300 to 500 foot bumps to get over and back down. In about 4 miles I came to the side trail to Plumorchard Gap Shelter. It was .2 miles downhill, but I had lots of time, so I walked down there and signed the register. That's the first shelter I ever slept in on the A.T. This whole area means alot to me...especially just north of Dick's Creek Gap...alot of old memories here. I continued a couple more ups and downs until I got to Dick's Creek Gap. Corsican wasn't there, but it was only 11:20am. I sat down on my pack in the sun and started journaling. A short time later a car pulled up. The guy asked if I was a thru hiker and when I said yes, we ended up talking for a while. His name is Detour and he's been sectioning the A.T. for 6 years and now has less than 200 miles to finish. I waited until noon on Corsican and when he didn't show, Detour gave me a ride to Hiawassi and dropped me off at Daniel's Steakhouse. Detour left because he had already eaten. I ordered the buffet and had 2 plates of food and one desert. I was stuffed!! I walked over to the grocery and resupplied, then sent in my journal entry and checked my email. I headed out of town looking for a ride back to the trail. I kept walking until I got to the far end of town and a guy stopped and said he'd give me a ride up the mountain for $5.00. I took him up on it. He needed gas, so he stuck $5.00 worth of gas in his small truck and took me up the mountain. He was telling me about all the pot he grows. Hummm, must not make alot off it because he was broke. I started walking south again at 2:50pm. I was walking slow because I had eaten too much and I had a 1200 foot climb. It wasn't too bad because I did take it slow all the way up the mountain. I walked right by Deep Gap Shelter without stopping, then did a steep little 700 foot climb up Kelly Knob. From there I had a 900 foot down, then just a few 400 foot ups and downs. When I got to Sassafras Gap, I decided to go down the hill about 150 yards to the spring. It ended up be a steep down, but it was a nice spring. I filled up both water bottles so I could stop anywhere along the way that I wanted for the night. I went another 2 1/2 miles and found a nice soft spot and set up my tent for the night. I'm still at 41 leaf catches. The darn leaves haven't started falling much yet since all that wind from a couple days ago. I'm going to take a chance with this new group, but I'm going to let all the doctors and nurses that work inside a hospital all day long play...heck, I'm feeling generous, so I'm even going to include any of their patients that are hooked up to IV's play. No, that's not being mean...they like to get exercize too. :-))) Senorita Worm signed my guestbook and said she's in Baja, Mexico and has 50 catches. I know her and she's an honest lady. I didn't realize there were that many trees in Baja, so until I have time to check it out, I'm going to have to stop any further players from competing in Baja. I've also heard from some reliable sources that there was a new program installed on select journals to stop the rampit self clicking of one's own journal just to raise her...I mean their counters. It's a pretty cool idea. It doesn't take away all the self clicks from one's journal at one time, but every time that journal gets a new hit, it takes away 3 to 7 hits and will keep doing that until all the hits from that person's home computer have been disqualified. They tried it on mine because I have quite a few hits all together, but found my hits were all on the up and up. At least that's going my story for now. :-))) I heard they hit the jackpot when they tried; www.trailjournals.com/liteshoe Take a moment and go over there to that site and hit on the site a few times and watch the counter. :-))) What the heck, keep clicking and watching the counter...it's fun!! I understand that it will be going backwards until...according to a confidential source, her...I mean that site will end up around 125,000 real hits. I've had a small, little, teensy weensy, minimal competion going on with the owner of that site for about a year or so. In trying to be a nice guy, I've even mentioned her...I mean that website on my journal a number of times and am probably the reason there are so many good hits. I know, sometimes it just doesn't pay to be a nice guy. I wondered why she...I mean that person would do something like that, so since I'm almost never around a computer to see what's going on, I asked a friend to compare the hits on my site to the hits on her...I mean the other site and here's the result;Stumpknocker;2004AT 277,7022004JMT   9,9922005AT   37,9602005FT   30,396Total   356,050 October 26,2005Liteshoe has 2003AT 352,635 and her LT journal has 21,636 for a total of374,271.She even started getting hits way back in 2002.As you can see, she has more hits than I do, but just wait until all those self clicks are taken away. I'll bet that 18,000 hit gap is already narrowing as I type this, so if you keep on giving hits to her site, by the time I'm done with this hike I'll be in the lead. :-))) That poor, pathetic girl. Self clicking is digusting and needs to be stopped!!jv, oops...I mean Stumpknocker ;-)))ps I couldn't have anything to do with all that because I'm in the woods all the time...there's not even electricity out here. Ha!!! I'm "eenocent."