Date: 2005-03-25
From: Tent between Tray Mtn. Shelter & Blueridge Shelter

To: Hotel, Hiawassee Ga
Miles today: 8.1
Weather: clear sky

YES!!! YES!!! I gotta a dollar!! I gotta dollar!! The tooth fairy found us!!! Yes, the tooth fairy was able to find Oblivious even on the AT. Pretty incredible huh? Oblivious had been pretty skeptical about the whole put the tooth in the cup vice under the pillow in the sleeping bag. But trail magic happens even for little guys. Our family has officially increased our hiking speed from 1 mile per hour to 1.5 miles per hour. Let me interpret that statement. What that really means is that I, Anchor, have increased my hiking speed. Troll and Oblivious have increased their speed to around 2 miles per hour. That also requires further clarification. Actually, Troll has increased his speed. Oblivious runs down the trail like a gazelle. Troll keeps telling Oblivious - slow down, be sure that I can see you. For part of the day Troll controls Oblivious' speed by doing schoolwork. We are looking forward to hitting double-digit days soon. Today, I actually hiked behind Oblivious for a while. At one point, he was running and making noises like a racecar. But he was holding his poles out at his side like airplane wings. Later, I asked him why he was running down the trail making airplane noises. I then got the "Oh mom" look, "I was making racecar noises". Oblivious also has a pretty annoying habit of announcing "Switchback!!!" and breaking out in an evil little chuckle. Since I have not seen a non-steep switchback, I know he is just laughing at his parents. We are very excited about tomorrow. We should be hitting our 1st state line. Today was a banner day for Oblivious. Besides the tooth fairy, he got to play with baby salamanders and have an all-you-can-eat Shoney's Seafood with sweet tea. We stopped for water at Deep Gap Shelter. There were at least 5 baby salamanders in the water pool below the spring. Oblivious was ecstatic. He got to be nature dude. He also found some really gross water bug creature and its larva. The bug looked like a fat moth that was about the length of one of my pinkie joints. We called it spawn of Moth-Ra. The larva looked like little gross water bug babies. It was way gross. Injury update: falls: Anchor - 1, Oblivious - 10, Troll - 0. Blisters: Anchor - 2 (1 per arch and pretty yucky), Troll - 2 (1 per pinky toe and not so yucky), Oblivious - 0. Joints: Anchor - knees a little achy, wearing below knee band braces, Troll - knees sore working on the bionic knee brace on each knee, Oblivious - his joints are made out of rubber. Stink factor: Variable. I decided not to pursue the pee rag theory put forth in our guest book. However, I am NEVER touching any other hikers' bandana. I resolved my problem by carrying my own roll of toilet paper in a ziplock. I keep my used paper in the same bag until I have to dig a "cat hole" and then I bury any previously used paper. Our clothes have been washed twice in the past 3 days, so they don't stink now. 2 hours into a typical hiking day I have enough salt from dried sweat on my face that I can exfoliate. (Eww - how gross). Our clothes also have that much sweat. So they just stink. We have taken to pinning yesterday's dirty socks on the out side of our packs to air them out. We are here in the hotel in Hiawassee with clean borrowed clothes. The hotel provides hikers loaner clothes. How cool is that. We have full stuffed tummies and are ready for bed. Take care and we will see you on the trail.