Date: 2011-04-04
From: Blue Mountain Shelter

To: Hiawassi Budget Inn
Miles today: 18.9

Oompa showed up last night and he, Trilobite and I hung out with the other shelter folk. Oompa and Trilobite opted to tent rather than sleep in the shelter with the weekend hikers, but I decided to brave the shelter, even though it looked like it might be along night, as the main point of hiking for the weekenders seemed to be building a large fire and staying up around it. Mercifully the kids got tired early and it turned out to not be a sleepless night after all. It was impressively windy, however, and I was glad to have three solid walls, at least, around me.I got an early start, not knowing how my knee would hold up and wanting to be able to walk slow and steady. In a few miles I pass Oops, who stopped to take pictures the evening before and still has his tent set up. I want to keep moving while I can so I say goodbye to Oops for the time being.Not long after, Oompa catches up. He's gunning for a hitch in to Hiawassi, a 19 mile day, and with my new pace he flies by me. I would love to get to Hiawassi to buy sunscreen and a knee wrap, but I'm not sure if my pace will get me there in time to hitchhike before dark, or if my knee will force me to stop before then.The day's trail is some of the hilliest so far, and while I do fine on the ups and flats, my right knee still bothers me on the downhill sections, of which there are several one mile long sections. Eventually I find a way to take slow small steps on the downhill, slowing me down a bit further but enabling me to travel without discomfort.As I walk, I think about linear projections of the AT. From the hiker's stand point, the AT goes north and the world twists and turn around it. You could map this perspective by taking thin slivers of a normal AT map that are centered about the trail and each perpendicular to that segment of the trail. If the slivers are small enough and you line them up you will get a rectangular map on which the AT travels in a perfect straight line. Cartographers must have a name for this projection, but lacking convenient access to a computer with a fast internet connection, I have no easy way of looking it up.The projection has, and lacks, some interesting properties. Area and distances are no longer to scale, and a single feature may appear multiple times. However, the AT itself will be to scale, and distances measured to items directly perpendicular to the trail will be to scale, since each sliver comes from a standard map. In addition to being an interesting thought experiment, I think that such a map would have some practical value. It would fit nicely next to the linear elevation profile (the only map most thru-hikers ever need), and would capture something of a thru-hiker's actual conception of the trail.The day is cloudless and the leafless trees provide no shelter from the blazing sun. When I can feel that the sunscreen I borrowed from the shelter that morning has worn off, I carefully ration out half of my remaining supply. The day is one of methodical hiking. I hike as quickly as I can without hurting my knee in the broiling heat, and count down the miles to the Hiawassi road crossing. At some point I look down and see a pink Skittle in the middle of the trail. When I pick it up, a leaf is fused to the back side. After scraping off most of the leaf, I pop the Skittle in my mouth. Never has a Skittle tasted so good.With only five miles to go to the road, I catch up with Trilobite / Packing Heat. I hadn't realized that she was ahead of me, but when I stopped off at a shelter for lunch she had passed me on the trail. We hike together and the last five miles fly by. Trilobite is only 19, it turns out, without any long distance hiking experience, but carries a light pack and travels faster than nearly anyone else. She had planned on staying at the shelter before the road tonight, but it is supposed to storm and I convince her to hike the extra miles and hitch in to Hiawassi.After a false start standing on the wrong side of the road (rookie hitchhiking mistake), the third pickup truck stops and Trilobite and I hop in the open bed. Speeding down the road in the bed of a pickup truck after hiking all day is wonderfully exhilarating. The Georgia hills, which looked like so many bare brown trees just minutes before, are suddenly revealed to be beautiful rolling vistas from the perspective of the road. The ride is 11 miles, and is the most glorious part of my whole trip so far. Who knew that to really appreciate the Georgia countryside you needed a pickup truck?The Blueberry Patch Hostel I had heard so many good things about is full (unsurprising given the weather forecast), so we head to the Hiawassi Budget Inn. A crowd of hikers is drinking beer outside on lawn chairs, and Oompa is standing with them. Oompa has already arranged to share a room with one hiker, and Trilobite decides to splurge for a single for herself before meeting her mom the next day.I inquire about getting some floor space in the room with Oompa and Bo, the hiker who originally booked the room, just stares at me with a beer in his hand. I ask again and he makes a vaguely coherent sentence involving 15 dollars, and I noncommittally ask what the room is like, already knowing that they each have only two beds and are listed at 40 dollars a night. Having known him less than a minute, I like Bo less than any other hiker I have ever met. Every instinct I have tells me to look for a different room, but part cheapness and part perverse desire for new experiences convinces me to go along.The room is strewn with hiker gear and food, has two bed (one a mess, the other still made) and smells of recent smoke. Bo waves his hand generally at the room and asks for 15 dollars from each of us. I point out the difference between a bed and the floor, and he begrudgingly offers 10 and 15. Oompa pays and I, knowing at the time that it is a mistake, do too.My first stop is the RiteAid next to the motel, where I buy Gatorade, two knee wraps, and the largest bottle of SPF 100 sunscreen I can find. Next is a shower, my first since leaving for the train to Georgia, which leaves me cleaner than I've been in a week. Oompa takes a shower next, and I take our combined dirty clothes to be washed. The hiker crowd by the hostel waves across the street when I ask where the laundry is, and when I ask for clarification they again point across the street. Seeing nothing likely there, I go in to the convenience store and ask for directions.The lady behind the counter tells me to walk up the street to the second light and look in the building with the locksmith. I trudge down the sidewalk with the dirty laundry in one plastic bag and my camera and Kindle in another bag. I had been contemplating taking a zero day to rest my knee and let me keep hiking with Trilobite, who is a lot of fun. But as I walk through town I get the same feeling of suffocation that I got at Neel's Gap, and wonder if I could stand a whole day in town.The first stop light is in a quarter mile or so, but there isn't another light for the better part of a mile. When I finally get to the laundromat, I find that it closed at 5pm, and rain has begun to fall. Cursing the miserable town of Hiawassi, I vow to leave it as soon as possible in the morning.When I finally return, wet, to the hostel, someone shows me the laundry room, not 20 feet from the spot where I had originally asked, off to the side of where the first hikers had pointed. In front of the motel Bo is getting drunker, and I skip the socializing for the time being, start the laundry, put some ice on my knee, and write in my journal. By the time I have finished my entry Bo has returned to pass out with a Budweiser in his hand and the laundry must be just about done.