Date: 2005-04-01
From: Fontana Dam Shelter

To: Fontana Dam
Miles today: 0.3
Weather: moderate rain

Started Fontana Dam ShelterDestination: Fontana DamToday's miles: 0.3Total miles: 162.6Day 21Wow! What a big day! We wanted to walk to from the shelter tothe dam where we will start tomorrow morning: Otherwise wewould have to go back to the road where the shelter is and walkit. We called the Hike Inn and they came and picked us. But, before we left the shelter we had the police come and questionthe few of us that were left about some beer that the man picking uptrash saw this morning. Alcoholic beverages are prohibited. The police asked who brought itand what did they look like. We told them someone had broughtit in as trail magic and we did not know their names or evenremember what they looked like. They had spent the night buthad left already. Of course they confiscated the beer but lefta Snickers bar that was in the cooler.When we hiked out a few minutes later the police were searchingthe car and truck of the ones that brought it in. I felt badfor them because they were only providing trail magic for theones that like to drink beer but on the other hand that is a waythat hikers sometimes get a bad name. We had our laundry done by Nancy, our hostess here and weretaken into town last evening to buy dinner and go to a drugstore to buy some insect repellent, corn and callous cushions,and a phone card. Since we do not get a signal for the phone inthese mountains except in rare places it will come in handy whenwe need to call someone. And last night we needed to call ouryoungest daughter to find out what she found out on the sex oftheir first baby. IT'S A BOY!!We received a very nice card from Janet in AR and it arrived theday we got here at The Hike Inn. What timing. She congratulatedus on arriving at Fontana Dam when a lot of the hikers havealready left the trail for one reason or another. Now, how didshe knows we would still be on it? She said, DON'T QUIT!!. Thanks Janet for your support and encouraging words. And fortaking the time to write such a wonderfully appreciated note. If anyone wants to send a note via snail mail to us we have ourmail drops listed on this site. We plan to save every bit ofe-mail and snail mail that we get. Jeff, our host, had a huge collection of arrowheads andartifacts that he has found over the years. My brother, theflintknapper would love to see it, I'm sure. Jeff said to tellhim to come on down. Mike took pictures of all of them in theircases.Our room here has a small kitchen. Hopeful bought some icecream and cake and left it in our frig. After everyone got backfrom eating they all came over and we had dessert. Yum!Longhaul is here and will be resting his knee for 5 days beforeskipping ahead to hike into Hot Springs. All the others that arehere will be starting out in the morning for a week in the SmokyMountains. Must get to sleep. It is raining now and is supposed to rainhere tomorrow, too. That means maybe snow in the Smokey¢s. Yes, we have had some warm days when the little bugs swarmedaround our faces and I have a bite of some kind on my arm. Snakes have also been seen on those warm days so we need to keepa look-out for them. Goodnight.