Date: 2006-02-13
From: Dahlonega

To: View Entry
Miles today: 0.0

After 10 hours my plane finally hit the ground in Atlanta. Although I'm normaly pretty scared of flying this was actually the best flight I've ever had in my whole life. Virtually everything went smoothly and even the food tasted really good. The first minor problem occured as I had to go trough customs/INS. The officer in charge was a real nice young lady, who looked almost like Jennifer Lopez, but as I answered her question regarding the purpose of my trip with "hiking" she started grilling me a little bit. "Do you know anybody in the US? Is this your first time in the US? How much money are you carrying?" And so she went on for almost 10 minutes. I stood there in my Polarguard jacket and started sweating so much that drops were dripping down my forehead. But finally she was satisfied with my answers and said the magic words:"Welcome to the US. As Leigh from Hiker Hostel had given me very detailed instructions I had no problem to find my way to the MARTA train to North Springs where she picked me up around 04.30 pm. As you may remember I did a two day overnight hike on Saturday and Sunday. Besides getting some nice blister from wearing to thick socks I got a real problem with my down sleeping bag. As it was around 0 degree this night I put on my bivy bag over my sleeping bag to gain some extra warmth. Although it worked in the night my bag was soaking wet the next morning. The moisture that went through the bag must have had condensed on the cold inner surface of the bivy. So I decided to get a new bag, this time a synthetic one. I looked it up at REI and they had a 0 degree bag on sale for 169 $. The store is about 1.3 miles from the train station so I asked Leigh if we could go there to buy the bag. Afterwards she dropped me off in Dahlonega and her husband Josh gave me a ride to WalMart for resupply. I bought th! at much stuff it will probably last for at least 8 days and even as I left some food in the hiker box my foodbag still weighed around 16 pounds. Ken (Spiritual Pilgrim) arrived the same night and told me he will start his hike not before Wednesday. As I was totally tired from the long journey I also decided to stay another night at the hostel. Seemed to be a very good decision as this gave me the time to cure my blisters and to buy me some pairs of thinner socks to prevent my feet from getting new ones (blisters, not socks). Besides from that Hiker Hostel is a great place to stay and the owners are bending over backwards to make you feel like home.On Wednsday morning another hiker arrived. His trailname is crutch as he broke his ankle last year while hiking on the trail and after 8 weeks continued his hike by using a crutch. In the afternoon Josh brought in a bunch of hikers who wanted to escape from the cold to stay at least one night in a warm bed. Two of the guys had serious knee problems so this was probably the right desicion. So this night there were ten of us. Pilgrim, Crutch, Cheryl Pooler and her husband Bruce, also known as Noose and the Poolerbears, Braveheart and his buddy, Wayfarer, and a couple whose names I didn't get. It was a nice conversation and I was really amazed how friendly people in the US are. Probably this is a hiker thing, but I will soon find out when I meet other people who are not hikers. Tomorrow Josh will shuttle three of us to Springer Mountain and the other guys will resume their hike from where they got picked of. Nuts