Date: 2007-05-08
From: Iron Mountain, TN

To: Indian Grave Gap, TN
Miles today: 10.8
Weather: clear sky

Today is our final day of slackpacking. Persistent's watch went off at 8:00a.m., so I got up to take care of some stuff. Around 10:30 a.m., Tim showed upto take us up to Iron Mountain so we could hike back to Indian Grave Gap.This hike is a gorgeous hike. The trail had so many personalities today. Atthe top of Ukalona (sp?) Mt., it was like this pristine forest, where you aresurrounded by tall tall trees, old pine needles were coating the ground, it wasall shaded, and unlike any part of the trail that I've seen yet. The trees wereso thick and it was just a feeling of safety and protection from them. It wasalso about 10 degrees cooler with the shade. It got up to about 80 today.I would have had a million choices of where to hang my hammock! LOLWe then started down this mountain and it got rocky in some places and verysteep in others. Persistent and I have discovered that we can upload videoonto our trailjournals site now, so we're going to mess around with taking someand getting them up on our sites. I've actually taken 2 so far, but toldRachael she wouldn't be able to upload them. Hopefully she still has them,because one was from the Wesser Bald Fire Tower and the other was from the topof Max Patch. We'll see though. Pretty cool the TJ site supports videonow...good job and thanks Zipdrive!!Today it was abundantely clear that spring is on the way. Tons of maple trees(I think) with small leaves all over them. If you're favorite color is green,then you would have loved it today. Green everywhere and so nice to look at.We (as usual) convinced ourselves we were further than we were (at least we'remaintaining our optimism! LOL), because about 2.4 miles from our destinationwas supposed to be a place called the Beauty Spot. I know, funny name huh? Wethought we'd passed it, but as we soon found out, we hadn't.My god, it was amazing. You're hiking along and you're in trees, then you startup this hill and end up on a grassy bald that you can see all of the mountains,the town of Erwin and about 100 miles away! Persistent and I immediately threwour packs down, kicked off our shoes, layed down in the grass and sunbathed for30 minutes.It was one of the most perfect moments I've had on this journey. I layed thereand looked at the blue sky, the flat white clouds whisking overhead, I closedmy eyes and really paid attention to what it feels like to have the warm breezeblowing against your skin. I could hear bugs buzzing all around, some would flyright past my head. It was like I was a giant that had suddenly laid down in abug metropolis, and I had gotten in their way. Ladybugs were crawling on mylegs and pack, and it was so cool, because that sound that cars make when theyzoom past you, was what I heard bigger bugs doing as I lay there. Zoooooom,zoom, zooooooooom.The view was just stunning. Folds and fold of mountains that looked fakealmost. They literally looked like the 3-D maps of mountain ranges. The skywas a light blue near the land, and the further up I looked,it got deeper anddarker. It was like I could almost see outerspace. I'm not coming close todoing this moment justice with my description here. I lived in this moment,thought of nothing else, but let my senses allow me to truly experience itsperfection. It was so hard to leave this place.Persistent, who needs to admit she has a crab-leg addiction, talked of how shewished Eric was there and how she wished she could have a big picnic of crablegs! LOLWe finally pulled ourselves away and headed down the last 2.4 miles. We decidedwe wanted to take Tim, the guy from Ms. Janet's who has been shuttling useverywhere, out for dinner, and we wanted Chinese....again. LOLJust before getting to Indian Grave Gap, Tim was up the trail a bit with hisbinoculars, he's been into bird watching for a bit (he also section hiked thewhole trail in 2 years). We asked if we could buy him dinner, so we decided toclean up and he went back over to Ms. Janets to see if anyone else wantedChinese.He showed back up and one woman, Rosie from Tusan, AZ, was going with us. Really cool woman, and Tim took us to the AYCE Chinese buffet in Johnson City,TN. Guess what they had....CRAB LEGS!!!! LOL Persistent was VERY happy tosay the least!We ate, and ate, and ate...and then ate some more. We all had a greatconversation about everything and about nothing. Rosie had been carrying afortune (from a fortune cookie) around for a long time. She got it out and itread, "You will travel far both personally and in business." It was meaningfulto her, and I believe she said she got it when she lived in California. She hadmoved to Arizona last September. Well, the night goes on, we finish ourdinners and I grab a fortune cookie. I opened it, and looked at Rosie. I toldher she wasn't going to believe this. It read, "You will travel far bothpersonally and in business." Can you believe it? It was the SAME fortune asthe one she'd been carrying around forever!!!!!! HOW WEIRD IS THAT!!? LOL Ihave some crazy luck with fortune cookies huh? LOLTim finally brought us back to our motel, and I asked him about getting a rideto a grocery store in the morning so we can re-supply, then getting shuttled toIron Mt.,so we can finally get out of town. I also got permission from the nicepeople who manage the motel to do a late check-out at noon, so we can have aplace to leave our crap while we take care of re-supplying, etc.So it was a pretty great day. I have a small blister on my right heel from mynew shoes, but it should be ok. I've also got a huge rip along the seam of thecrotch in my hiking pants....so I need to sew that up. My "thread" is mintdental floss, so I guess that means I'll have a minty crotch now? LOLI'm so ready to get back into the woods and get back into my hammock. I'mhaving withdrawals! LOL~Certain