Date: 2018-10-03
From: Max Patch campsite

To: Standing Bear Hostel
Miles today: 13.6

Unfortunately, we did not get a sunrise this morning. Max Patch was completely socked in. We woke up in a wet, foggy cloud. And apparently Disco didn¢t sleep well. The big group of glampers last night stayed up pretty late partying. I had earplugs in though, so I slept through it all. Today was Disco¢s Aunt¢s 100th birthday, so I got to overhear that phone call this morning which was pretty comical. For being 100 yrs old, this woman still very much has her mind. She knew a lot about the AT and had tons of questions for him. ¢Where are you? What state? How many miles left?¢ Disco had the call on speaker phone and kept looking at me for the answers to these questions. Well, heck if I know. I didn¢t have the guidebook on hand, so I¢ll I knew was that we were standing on top of some mountain, in either Tennessee or North Carolina, with around 250 miles to go. That wasn¢t that great of an answer, but its a lot harder to know where you are out here sometimes than you would think.Also, I made the mistake of telling Disco that I blog everyday and that he¢s a ¢character¢ in my stories. Now every time he says or does something he thinks is funny he follows it up with ¢Now that was blog worthy!¢ Lol Kill me. We ended up doing a short day and hiked into Standing Bear Hostel around 1pm, which was down a little gravel road in the middle of nowhere. We had to stop there to pick up our food package we had sent ahead for The Smokies. But since Disco wasn¢t feeling 100, we decided to stay and pay for a tent site.There¢s a guy working at the hostel that goes by Rhino. He¢s an ex-Marine in his mid-40s. Super chill dude. He hiked the PCT last year, so I bombarded him with hundreds of questions. It seems doable, but definitely hard. A lot less people thruhike the PCT than the AT apparently. It¢s just a lot more remote in some areas and the elements associated with the trek are harder. It¢s like some next level shit. He also told me about this super cool website called coolworks.com. It¢s a site full of job postings all over the country in really cool places. You can surf the site by job category or season. There¢s currently tons of seasonal job listings for ski resorts and lodges in places like Colorado and Utah. And the cool part is that the jobs usually come with room and board, a meal plan, and all-access ski time on off-days. How dope is that! AND it¢s not super permanent. Most only last from Nov-April, so I wouldn¢t be locked in. I think a job of that nature would be ideal for me since it involves being in cool, outdoorsy areas and doesn¢t trap me forever which is something I¢m trying desperately to avoid. There¢s a freedom in trail-life that can¢t be matched anywhere else. I¢d do anything at this point to try and hold on to that. The hostel has a small, little resupply store/snack shack. Amongst the cobwebs, I found a can of expired VEGAN shredded taco ¢meat¢ filling. And since it was expired, I got it for FREE! Don¢t ask me when it expired though. Okay, maybe October of last year. Lol! But does textured soy protein in a can really ever go bad?? I¢m taking the gamble on this one. It makes my usual, plain Ramen noodle dinner much more exciting. Oh geez, how the standards have dropped. Tomorrow we embark into The Smokies, which is pretty much the last really cool section of the trail. I have some big couple of days planned ahead, and I¢m curious if Disco will be able to hang because I¢m not slowing down. Lol Disco told me today that he sees The Smokies as a ¢test.¢ If he can keep up with me through this section, then he thinks he¢ll be able to make it to the end with me. We shall see I suppose!